Thanks For the Memories
by Notorious JMG
Summary: When Chuck's life starts to disappear piece by piece, he finds himself in a race against time to figure out what's going on - before he disappears as well. Crossover with "Veronica Mars"; follows "Chuck In a Moment".
1. Prologue

_**Author's Note:**__ this story follows _Chuck In a Moment_. It was inspired by the _Star Trek: The Next Generation _episode "Remember Me" (1990, season 4, episode 5).  
In addition, though this story does draw its title from a Fall Out Boy song, it will not be a "song title" fic, such as my last three have been._

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

Something was not adding up.

Chuck looked at the map in disbelief. According to Google Maps, the whole of the world was an area smaller than twenty square miles. If he went north, it ended at Sunset Boulevard. To the east, the 405 freeway; south, Venice Boulevard, and to the west, the Pacific Ocean seemed to go as far as the edge of the continental shelf – and then just stop.

"There's no way," Chuck breathed. "What the hell happened?"

He scrolled out – and the only thing that Google Maps displayed around the edges of the bounded areas was the graphic that said "No information for this zoom level."

And then, as he watched, it got a little bit smaller. Sunset Boulevard disappeared.

"NO WAY!" Chuck shouted. With trembling hands, he switched over to the directions option and asked for directions from his apartment to Sunset and Bundy Drive.

_Google Maps is unable to locate your destination,_ it said. Sunset Boulevard was just plain gone.

And then it hit Chuck – what was bothering him about this.

"If this is everything that exists, then Google Maps shouldn't work," he said. "Google is located in Mountain View!"

Just like that, Firefox switched over to a 404 Not Found error page.

"This is just wrong," Chuck whispered.

Grabbing his keys, Chuck ran downstairs to the parking lot. He grimaced.

It was the Herder that sat there. The Corvette was long gone – disappeared to God knew where.

Chuck beeped open the Herder and got in. Starting it up, he pulled out of the complex onto Lincoln Boulevard.

The streets were littered with abandoned cars. Nobody was in Santa Monica.

The lights were cycling through – red, green, yellow – but no cars were moving. Chuck simply ignored the lights, and the occasional red light camera flash that accompanied them.

If he was right, there was no point in observing them.

When he reached Olympic Boulevard, he turned left to head east. Two blocks later, he took the ramp to lead him onto the Santa Monica Freeway.

The overhead signs told him what streets were coming. _Twentieth Street. Pico Boulevard. I-405 Freeway._

But then there was the yellow sign at the bottom of the big green sign. _FREEWAY ENDS 3 MILES_.

"What?!"

That couldn't possibly be right. Interstate 10 ran all the way across the country to Florida – which quite possibly no longer existed.

And as Chuck approached the 405, he took his foot off the gas and slowly coasted to a stop. Putting the Herder in park, he stepped out of the car and looked to the east.

He looked – and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The Intersect flashed, and told him exactly what he was looking at.

"Oh my God…"


	2. Gone, Baby, Gone

**2:00 P.M., Pacific Standard Time  
Sunday, November 21****st****, 2010  
Santa Monica, California**

Today had been the twins' first day at church. Six days old now, they definitely were the focus of attention after the service was over.

Between the old ladies and the college girls, Chuck hadn't been quite sure he was ever going to see either of his children again. But eventually, John Marcus and Lisa Veronica Bartowski had both ended up back in his possession.

Chuck and Sarah had loaded the twins into Casey's Suburban – he had been loaning it to them since Sarah hit the six month mark and could no longer fit behind the wheel of her Porsche. The manager of the apartment complex in Santa Monica hadn't been pleased with having to designate three parking spots for a two-bedroom apartment – Chuck refused to give up his Corvette, Sarah her Porsche – but Chuck had made it worth his while.

Eventually, they were going to have to break down and buy a real family car. Neither of them was particularly looking forward to the concept of driving a minivan or anything similar, but Sarah had indicated that she'd be okay with a Volvo XC90 ("Hint, hint," she had sarcastically said to Chuck after driving past a Volvo dealership one day).

For now, though, they were driving the equivalent of a small tank around Los Angeles. Casey's Suburban had been "upgraded" by the NSA so that nothing short of a full-on military assault would take it out.

Right at that very moment, Chuck was sitting on the couch in the living room, holding little Lisa while the Lakers were pounding the bejeezus out of Miami in the background. "You're gonna cause so much trouble someday, if you're anything like your mama," he quietly said.

Thinking about Lisa's life down the road caused Chuck to shake his head and laugh. Lisa's mother was a federal agent. Lisa's "Uncle" Bryce was a federal agent. Her godfather and her godmother – John Casey and Veronica Mars, respectively – were both federal agents.

Chuck could just imagine Lisa's first date. He was quite certain that there would be a black Crown Vic tailing whatever car she was in, a cranky mid-fifties NSA agent with far too many guns in his possession at the wheel of the Crown Vic. Bryce would probably be standing on the front porch with a shotgun when the boy showed up.

Chuck had no intention of doing any such thing. "You say that now," Ellie had jokingly said. "I guarantee you your feelings will change by the time she turns fifteen."

Casey had also made it quite clear that he intended to have John and Lisa both instructed in the fine art of firearms use and maintenance by the time they were ten years old. "Oh, joy," Sarah had deadpanned up on hearing this. "Instead of growing up with Hot Wheels and Matchbox, my kids will grow up with Brownings and Glocks."

Chuck was snapped out of his reverie by the sound of Lisa wailing in distress. "What is it?" he asked the six day old. "Are you hungry?"

He stuck the tip of his index finger in her mouth. She started sucking on it, then gave him an accusatory glance when she realized nothing was coming out, and screamed even louder. "Sarah!" Chuck called, standing up from the couch. "Lisa's hungry!"

Sarah emerged from the kitchen, John over one shoulder, patting him gently on the back. "You feed her," she sighed. "I'm not sure how much more of this I can take."

Chuck smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, that's not possible," he replied. "And seriously, it's only been six days."

Sarah fixed him with a look of disgust. "Six days of having two insatiably hungry creatures sucking on my breasts non-stop," she replied.

"Non-stop?" Chuck asked. "I think you might be exaggerating."

"It's what it feels like!" Sarah snapped. "Tell you what, let me punch you in the nuts. Then you might have an idea of how sore I am."

Chuck slowly backed away. "I think I'm gonna take your word for it," he said.

Sarah sighed. "Here," she said, holding John out to him. "Trade me, and then put John in the swing."

He traded babies with her, but frowned. "Why am I putting John in the swing?"

"Because you're going to the grocery store and getting me ice cream," Sarah shot back. "None of that low-sugar, low-fat bullshit. I want the good stuff."

Chuck fixed her with an amused look. "It's like you're still pregnant."

Sarah was not so amused. "I would recommend you go now," she said softly and dangerously. "If Ben and Jerry don't walk through the front door within the next thirty minutes, you're a dead man."

"Okay!" Chuck replied. "I'm gone."

He grabbed the keys to the Corvette and his Blackberry off the counter. He fixed the Blackberry to his belt as he headed downstairs.

Jumping in the Corvette, he fired it up and burned rubber all the way out onto Lincoln Boulevard. Fortunately for Chuck, there was a Von's just a couple blocks away, and so he was there in less than five minutes.

Chuck went inside, and made a beeline for the frozen foods section. He was momentarily baffled, though, as he stood in front of the freezer case.

He was confronted with at least twenty different flavors of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. "Hell," he muttered. What to get for Sarah, what to get for Sarah.

Finally, he decided the best course of action was variety. Sarah liked chocolate. Chuck had lots to choose from. So, he picked four, and opened the freezer case –

And his ear started buzzing. It was a little weird. He shook his head, and the buzzing lessened a little but didn't go away. Chuck reached into the freezer, grabbed the four pints, dropped them in his basket, and let the door swing shut –

As it shut, an agonizing pain shot through his head without warning. With a gasp, he reached up to his head. The basket slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He crouched low, his eyes squeezed shut in agony.

This was not a flash. This was pain from hell. No images flashed in front of his eyes, just bright lights.

Finally, the lights and the pain subsided. As they did so, Chuck heard his phone ringing. Reaching down, he grasped it from his belt and answered. "H-h-hello?"

"Chuck?" The voice of Logan Echolls sounded in his ear. "Dude, you sound like you just got punched in the stomach. Are you okay?"

"I don't know, Logan. I just had this awful pain shoot through my head. It was like nothing I've ever experienced." His free hand trembling, Chuck reached down and picked up his basket off the floor. The cartons of ice cream were still sealed. "But, I guess I'm good now."

"Okay," Logan replied, not sounding convinced. "I was just calling to make sure you're up for Zuma tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, absolutely!" Chuck replied. He wasn't going to miss the chance to go surfing – even if it was friggin' freezing in the water. "6:30, right?"

"Yeah, as long as you're feeling up to it," Logan said. "Seriously, I understand if you've got a headache and can't go."

"No, I'll be there," Chuck insisted. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Bidding Logan farewell, Chuck pulled the phone from his ear. Pressing the disconnect button, he put the iPhone back on his belt and headed for the checkout –

Wait a second. His IPHONE?!

Chuck yanked the phone from his belt. Sure enough. It was an Apple iPhone. "What the hell?" Chuck whispered. He hadn't had an iPhone since August, when he'd replaced it with a Blackberry.

Could he have possibly gotten somebody else's phone, somehow? No, that wasn't possible. How could Logan have called him on somebody else's phone?

Chuck shook his head. Sarah still had an iPhone. Maybe he'd grabbed that by mistake. He could've sworn he'd grabbed his Blackberry… but he'd been wrong before.

After paying for the ice cream, he headed back out to the Corvette. He got in, and was back at the apartment complex in five minutes.

As he pulled in, he noticed a rather puzzling sight. The parking space on the other side of Sarah's Porsche – where Casey's Suburban should've been – was empty. "What the hell?" Chuck asked himself. "Did Sarah find it necessary to take the kids and go somewhere in the twenty minutes I was gone?"

He took the steps up to the apartment two at a time. Unlocking the door to the apartment, he opened it and stepped in.

Something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on what, but something was definitely off. "Sarah, babe," he called out, "where's the Suburban?"

"What Suburban?"

_What Suburban?!_

He opened up the freezer and put the ice cream away. "You know, Casey's Suburban?"

"I would imagine it's in Casey's driveway," Sarah replied, sounding confused. "Why would it be here?"

Chuck stepped out into the living room – and that's when it hit him.

There was no baby swing. In fact, there was no evidence that the twins were there at all.

"Sarah," he said, slowly turning around, "where are the kids?"

And as he turned and saw her, his eyes went wide. "What kids?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "Are you feeling alright?"

Chuck just continued to stare. Sarah definitely did not look like a woman who had been pregnant with twins six days before – and she most certainly had when he had left for the store.

"Our kids," he whispered. "John and Lisa… they were just born last Monday…"

Sarah slowly shook her head. "Chuck, I did not just have two kids six days ago." She laughed nervously. "I'm pretty sure I would've noticed."

"No, no," Chuck insisted, holding up a hand and shaking his head. He turned and headed for their bedroom. "Come on, their stuff still has to –"

He opened the door for the second bedroom, to be confronted by his Nerd Cave. "This can't be right!" he said. "This is all wrong! There's supposed to be two cribs in here, and a changing table…"

Chuck whirled on his wife. "Where are the goddamn kids, Sarah?!"

Sarah actually looked a little frightened. Chuck took a deep breath and tried to will his face to soften. "We don't have any kids, Chuck," she said softly. "Are you feeling alright?"

"No, I'm not feeling alright!" he shouted. "My head practically exploded at the grocery store, and then I answered a call on my iPhone, which I replaced three months ago with a Blackberry, and then I come home and find my kids are gone! What the FUCK is going on?!"

"Chuck," Sarah said slowly, "I think you need to go lie down for a moment."

"No!" Chuck shot back. "This is no time for me to go lie down, this is –"

"CHUCK." Sarah's voice took on a hard edge. "You are clearly not feeling well. I want you to go lie down, right now."

Chuck sighed, feeling defeated. "Okay," he said quietly. He turned and went into the bedroom. As he lay down on the bed, he heard Sarah pick up the phone and dial.

"Hi, Ellie," he heard a moment later, a clear note of concern in her voice. "Listen, could you and Devin come over right away? I think something's wrong with Chuck."

* * *

Devin was checking Chuck's nervous reflexes while Ellie questioned him. "So, Chuck, you thought that Sarah had twins last Monday?" she asked.

Devin shone a penlight into Chuck's left eye. "Yeah," Chuck replied, squinting. "Their names were John Marcus and Lisa Veronica."

Ellie shook her head. "That seems really weird that your mind would've just manufactured that," she said as Devin tapped joints, testing Chuck's nervous reflexes.

He shook his head. "Nervous function appears fine, babe," he told his sister.

She looked concerned. "I think we need to get him in for a head CT," she replied. "This just doesn't add up."

"Wait!" Sarah interjected, a concerned look on her face. "A head CT, would it, uh, would the scanning procedure in any way interfere with, say, Chuck's memories?"

_Translated: will it mess with the Intersect?_ Chuck thought.

Devin shook his head. "It shouldn't. It's just an image. Unless something goes drastically wrong, I see no reason why it would."

Sarah nodded – and then something occurred to Chuck.

"Devin, Ellie, if you're here, who's watching Reese?"

His sister and brother-in-law looked at each other. "Watching who?" Ellie asked, confused.

_Oh, no,_ Chuck thought. "Your son," he replied. "Reese Walker Woodcomb?"

Ellie's face took on a look of genuine concern. "Chuck, what are you talking about? We don't have a kid."

And just like that, Chuck's situation went from bad to worse.


	3. Nothing But a Logan Echo

**1:30 A.M., Pacific Standard Time  
Monday, November 22****nd****, 2010  
Santa Monica, California**

After Devin and Ellie came to the determination that Chuck needed a head CT, Ellie called over to Cedars-Sinai, where she was currently doing a visiting professorship. They said the earliest that they had a CT slot available for a non-emergency was Monday afternoon. Ellie had immediately put him on a diet of Pedialyte – which he had thought was disgusting as a kid, and his opinion of which hadn't changed – and nothing else until the scan.

Ellie and Devin ended up leaving around 6:00, leaving Chuck alone with Sarah. Chuck was in a state of shock over what he perceived to be the disappearance not only of his children, but his nephew as well. Sarah could barely stand to look at Chuck – he just looked so incredibly sad and upset. Even if the memories were manufactured, his emotions were very real.

Around 7:00, Chuck went to bed, claiming exhaustion – both physical and emotional. He fell asleep still dressed in his church clothes. When Sarah joined him in bed just after 10:00, she could hear him softly crying in his sleep. Seeing him like this hurt her so badly that she started to tear up as well, curling up behind him and wrapping him in her embrace in the hopes that he would notice in his subconscious.

Just before midnight, Chuck woke up. He noticed Sarah's arm wrapped around him. Rolling over, he gently kissed her on the forehead, and then got out of bed.

He tiptoed out of the bedroom and went into the Nerd Cave. Opening the closet, he moved some computer boxes out of the way, unearthing a flat box, about three feet by three feet, but only an inch thick.

Opening the box, he revealed some of the old artwork he had done when he was at Stanford. Unbeknownst to just about everybody, Chuck was actually quite a good artist. He kept it to himself most of the time, but he had always been at the top of his art classes at Stanford.

With a sigh, he pulled out a blank twenty-by-thirty inch piece of heavy stock paper, which he then clipped to a three-by-three foot cardboard square that was in the box. Reaching back into the closet, he pulled out the parts of an easel, which he quickly and quietly assembled. He clipped the cardboard square to the easel, and then sat back down.

Reaching into the closet a third time, he withdrew a large metal toolbox. Opening it, he was greeted with the sight of nearly two hundred different pens and pencils, neatly arranged by type and, in the case of about half of the pencils, color.

Chuck withdrew a number 4 drafting pencil and began lightly drawing on the surface of the paper. With each stroke of the pencil, a shape, a picture, an idea came forth. Soon enough, it became evident what Chuck was drawing.

Over the next hour, the pencil strokes took the shape of the face of a newborn baby girl. He went back over with darker pencils, charcoal pencils to create shade. Finally, when he was satisfied, he withdrew a calligraphy pen from the toolbox.

_**Lisa Veronica Bartowski**_, he inscribed at the bottom of the sheet.

Removing the sheet from the easel, he tacked it to the wall, and another blank sheet went on the easel. He repeated the process, and an hour later, wrote _**John Marcus Bartowski**_ at the bottom. After he tacked that up, a third sheet went on the easel, the picture took shape once more, and at 4:30 A.M., Chuck wrote _**Reese Walker Woodcomb**_ at the bottom.

It was cathartic for Chuck to be able to do this. With no photographs, no videos, no proof that his two infant children and his one and a half year old nephew had ever actually existed, this gave him something tangible – something that he could look at to remind himself of the three kids.

He was still sitting in the Nerd Cave, an hour later, looking at the drawings tacked to the wall, when the phone rang, startling him. Chuck nearly fell out of his chair, but righted himself, and reached out for the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Chuck, it's Logan," he heard. "Just wanted to make sure you were up and ready to head out to pound the waves."

Chuck smiled. Maybe this would help take his mind off the kids. "Yeah, Logan, I'll see you – no, wait," he stopped himself. He had forgotten – no more Suburban, and there was no way he could haul a board on the Corvette. "Actually, would you mind picking me up?"

"Yeah, no problem," Logan replied. "See you in half an hour or so."

Half an hour later, Chuck was sitting in the kitchen, disgustedly sipping Pedialyte and watching _Good Morning America_ when his phone rang. "Yo, I'm outside!" Logan said as soon as Chuck picked up. "Let's go!"

Chuck ducked his head into his and Sarah's room – she was still asleep. He tiptoed to the side of the bed, and bent down and kissed her. "Mmmm," she said in her sleep, sounding happy.

Chuck smiled. That was still right, at least.

Chuck headed back to the living room. He grabbed his shortboard from next to the front door, along with the backpack containing his wetsuit. He dashed downstairs, and saw Logan's black Range Rover, sitting in the dim light of 6:00 on a November morning in Santa Monica.

Logan released the tailgate, and it swung open, letting Chuck put his board inside. He tossed the backpack in, and then slammed the tailgate closed.

"Jesus, Chuck, be careful," Logan admonished him as he got in. "I prefer for my tailgate to remain on the outside of the vehicle."

"Sorry, Mr. Supervisor," Chuck cracked as he buckled himself in.

Logan Echolls had been elected county supervisor back in the fall of 2007. The previous supervisor, Stewart Manning, had been brought down on charges of corruption, malfeasance, and of all things, child abuse. After being charged by the Los Angeles County prosecutor – he preferred to conduct his crime outside of Balboa County – he had sung like a canary, and taken Sheriff Vinnie Van Lowe down with him.

Van Lowe had barely defeated Keith Mars in the special election the previous spring, despite Keith seemingly going out of his way to piss off the '09ers. And so, the county's board of commissioners had appointed Keith to be acting sheriff – AGAIN – until a special election for both sheriff and supervisor could be held.

Nobody was foolish enough to run against Keith this time, and it looked like nobody at all was going to be foolish enough to run for supervisor, until a month before the election, when Logan Echolls had said, "What the hell, it's not like I can screw things up any worse than they already are."

Running on a ludicrous platform of lowering the drinking age and legalizing prostitution, Logan had ended up running unopposed anyway. When he was sworn in on December 1st, he was, at the age of twenty, the youngest county supervisor in Balboa County history.

Surprisingly enough, despite his lackadaisical attitude and his distinctly _laissez-faire _approach to running the county, Logan had done a decent job – good enough, at least, to get him re-elected in November of 2010 against Jake Kane – or, as many in Balboa County had taken to calling him, the anti-Christ.

But here he was, three weeks after re-election, driving out to Malibu to go surfing with a multi-millionaire video game developer – Chuck Bartowski. "You know, Chuck," Logan had told him on more than one occasion, "you and Sarah really ought to consider moving down to Neptune. You'd fit right in in the 90909."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Chuck had told him. "That, and some of the houses down there cost more than Rock Star is paying me for my next game."

But now, as they rode up the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu, Chuck was surprisingly quiet. "You okay, Chuck?" Logan asked.

Chuck sighed. "Yesterday was pretty weird," he replied. "You know when you called me?"

"And you sounded like you were being stepped on by a rhino?" Logan said.

"Okay, rhetorical question," Chuck laughed. "Anyway, I had just had this horrible shooting pain in my head. Then, when I hung up the phone, it was an iPhone, which I could've sworn I replaced back in August with a Blackberry. But it's a lot worse than that. I was almost certain that Sarah had been pregnant, and that we had had twins a week ago. I also could've sworn that my sister had a kid a year and a half old."

Logan looked away from the road briefly, just long enough to give Chuck a strange look. "I'm rather certain you're childless," he observed.

"Yeah, I know," Chuck sighed. "It's some sort of hallucination or manufactured memory, I guess. Ellie wants me to go in for a head CT today. The thing is, though, last night, I was up drawing pictures of the three kids for more than three hours – and they just look so real. They look exactly as I remember them in my mind."

Logan was quiet for a moment. "Maybe that head CT isn't such a bad idea, Chuck," he finally said.

"Yeah, I know," Chuck replied.

"You haven't been doing any… you know… recreational drugs, have you?"

Chuck laughed. "Sarah would have my ass in a sling. She'd know before I even walked in the door."

Logan shrugged. "Just checking. You know, LSD, GHB – they cause you to see and think some stupid stuff."

Chuck sighed. "So… I know this is asking a big favor, but would you be willing to drive over to Cedars with me this afternoon when I get the scan? Sarah's coming straight from work, and I don't really feel like going over there by myself."

Logan nodded. "Anything for a friend."

* * *

After a couple good hours of surfing, Chuck and Logan headed back to Santa Monica. Logan ended up just hanging out at Chuck's place for the day. They engaged in a vicious Call of Duty tournament, followed by a more tame Mario Kart rumble.

At 3:00 P.M., they headed out to Chuck's Corvette and headed toward Beverly Hills. As they were headed east on Santa Monica Boulevard, Chuck started hearing a ringing in his ears.

Logan looked at him curiously as he shook his head. "Everything all right up in there?" he asked, gently tapping the side of Chuck's head.

"Yeah, I'm good," Chuck replied as the ringing dissipated. "My ears are just acting funny."

When they reached the hospital, Ellie met them at the main lobby and escorted them to radiology. Inside the lab, Devin was sitting in a control booth, a dizzying array of monitors and computer equipment in front of him.

"All right, Chuckster," he said. "Here's the drill. We're gonna get you in that CT machine and run an IV into your arm. The chemicals in the IV are harmless to you, but will react to the electrical impulses in your brain and light up on the scan. If there's anything out of the ordinary, we'll be able to see."

And so Chuck lay down on the sliding backboard. Ever so slowly, it moved him into the scanner, with Devin making the occasional comment. For nearly two hours, Chuck laid there, the scanner making an image of his brain, piece by tiny piece.

It was the most irritatingly agonizing thing he had ever had to do.

Finally, the board slid back out of the scanner, and Devin told him he could get up. Chuck hopped off the table, and Devin called him into the booth.

"Okay," said his neurologist brother-in-law. "What we have here, Chuck, is a three-dimensional model of your brain. Now, if you watch, you can see the chemicals reacting with the electrical impulses in your brain. They'll light up different colors."

As the model of Chuck's brain began to look like the Fourth of July, Devin explained that it was playing at 100 times the speed at which it had been recorded. "It looks pretty cool," Chuck admitted. "So what does it mean?"

Devin paused the playback. "Honestly, Chuck, it means nothing. Your brain is fine. All good, awesome. There is not a thing wrong with your brain that we can tell."

Chuck narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "Then what the hell made my brain manufacture three kids?!"

Devin shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "That might be a question for a psychologist," he replied, as Chuck's ears started to buzz.

Without warning, the same pain that had crippled him in the supermarket the day before shot through his head. With a gasp, he dropped to the floor.

The door to the booth burst open, and Ellie and Sarah both came running in. "Are you okay?" Sarah asked, as the pain subsided.

"Yeah," Chuck whispered. Then he looked out the door at the strangely empty hallway. "Uh, where's Logan?"

"Who?" Sarah asked, looking puzzled.

"Logan Echolls," Chuck replied. "Balboa County Supervisor? My surfing buddy? Came here with me in the Corvette?"

Ellie looked at Sarah with concern, and then to Devin. "Devin, we're gonna have to run the scan again," she said. "Something has to be wrong."

"Ellie," Chuck interrupted, "what's going on?"

Ellie shook her head. "Chuck, you came here by yourself. You don't know anybody named Logan Echolls."

* * *

_**Author's note**__: I played a little fast and loose with the science of a head CT scan here. Also, while I think you're all smart enough to get it, the title is a play on Logan's name._


	4. Planetary Misalignment

Midnight found Chuck back at the easel.

This one was a little more difficult. There were the details of an adult face to be worked in – lines in the face, tiny wrinkles around the eyes, even a little bit of stubble. But when Chuck finished, the name he put at the bottom definitely fit the face.

_**Logan Nicholas Echolls**_.

After he tacked the drawing up next to the drawing of Reese Woodcomb, he sat down and looked up at the wall.

Four people, four people who were part of his life – gone in two days.

Chuck closed his eyes – and then a thought came to him.

Rolling his chair over to the desk where his computer sat, he opened a Microsoft Word document and began typing.

**JOHN BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LISA BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**REESE WOODCOMB:** date met, 12 April 2009. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LOGAN ECHOLLS:** date met, 5 September 2008. Date missing, 22 November 2010.  
**VERONICA MARS:** date met, 24 July 2008.  
**JOHN CASEY:** date met, 26 September 2007.  
**SARAH WALKER:** date met, 25 September 2007.  
**BRYCE LARKIN: **date met, 4 September 1999.  
**DEVIN WOODCOMB:** date met, 17 March 1996.  
**MORGAN GRIMES:** date met, 9 September 1986.  
**ELLIE WOODCOMB:** date met, 22 September 1981.

Oh boy. This was not good. If there was actually a pattern here, Veronica would be the next to go missing. That would not make Chuck happy at all.

Then something else occurred to him – had anybody checked with her, see if she realized that Logan was missing? Surely it couldn't just be Chuck who had dreamed him up!

He grabbed his phone and started to dial Veronica's number – and then stopped himself. It was the middle of the night. How inconsiderate would that be?

Chuck could wait till the morning to talk to her. He hoped.

He clicked off the lamp that shone down on his easel, plunging the Nerd Cave into semi-darkness, illuminated only by the glowing blue LEDs on his beast of a desktop and the neon green alien face on the back of his laptop.

Carefully picking his way to the door, he exited the Nerd Cave, and opened the next door over, entering his bedroom. Sarah was still awake, sitting up in the bed, reading one of Chuck's issues of _Geek_ magazine.

He smiled and shook his head at the sight. "Since when do you read that?"

"Since they did a whole issue on the objectification of the female nerd," Sarah replied distractedly.

Chuck laughed. Crawling into the bed, he hooked a finger over the top of the magazine and gently pulled it down, forcing Sarah to look at him. "I personally don't need to objectify," he said. "I've got a pretty hot female nerd here in my bed with me."

Sarah raised an eyebrow and did her best to give Chuck her "I am not amused" look, but he could see the hint of a smile on her lips. "Come on," he insisted. "1540 on the SAT, National Merit Scholar, valedictorian? All that adds up to 'nerd'."

The hint of a smile disappeared. "And how exactly did you know all that?"

Chuck tapped his head. "The Intersect doesn't have much on Sarah Walker, but it's got a pretty extensive file on Elizabeth Reynolds," he replied.

Sarah looked him in the eyes. "So, what does it have on this friend of yours who you said disappeared, Logan Echolls?"

Chuck sighed. "It's got nothing. But I swear, he was real."

Sarah nodded. "How are you feeling, Chuck?"

He shook his head, and rolled over onto his back, resting his head on his pillow. "I thought I knew what it felt like to go crazy when I first got the Intersect in my head," he replied. "This makes that seem like nothing at all."

Sarah moved down the bed so that her head lay on her pillow, even with Chuck's, and rolled on her side to face him. "You seemed pretty upset when you found out that the kids you thought we had were gone," she said quietly.

The pain was evident on Chuck's face. "Yeah," he whispered. "I just wanted so badly to be a father, and actually having a son and a daughter made me so happy."

The way he said it was heartbreaking. "You really want a family, don't you?" Sarah asked him. Chuck just nodded.

She leaned over and kissed him, and then sat up and began to unbutton her nightgown. "Well, we could get to work on that," she said softly, letting the gown fall off her shoulders and pool around her waist.

Their lovemaking lacked an urgency that Chuck had always sensed in sex with Sarah. It was as if she had realized that the usual fire needed to be replaced with something far gentler.

And so it was slow and gentle. And for Chuck, whose mind was telling him he'd gone over two months without sex, it was pure torture. When he finally released, it felt like it went on forever.

When he finally rolled over and collapsed onto the bed, Sarah looked over at him. "Whoa."

Chuck didn't say anything. He just smiled contentedly at the ceiling. He felt Sarah get out of the bed, but a moment later, she returned. She curled up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Good night, Chuck."

"Night, Sarah."

* * *

Chuck woke up just before 9:00 on Tuesday morning. Sarah was gone – but there was still plenty of evidence of her existence, so he wasn't too concerned.

He stumbled out of bed to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and halfheartedly ran a razor over his face. When he looked a little more presentable, he exited the bedroom and went into the Nerd Cave.

Chuck sat down at his desk, opened the laptop – and was immediately confronted with his list. "Veronica," he whispered. He needed to call her.

Grabbing his phone, he dialed her cell phone number. It rang once, twice, four times – "Hi, you've reached Special Agent Veronica Mars, Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you need immediate assistance, please call the San Diego S.A.C. Otherwise, leave a message!"

Chuck shook his head and hung up. He dialed another number.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation, Carlsbad office. How may I direct your call?"

"Yes, I need to speak to Special Agent Mars, please."

"Just a moment."

There was a click – and then Chuck started hearing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" play over the phone. "Are you freaking kidding me?" he muttered.

Then there was another click, and then he heard, "Special Agent Mars, how may I be of assistance?"

"Veronica, this is Chuck Bartowski. I need to report a crime."

She was silent for a moment. "Chuck, is this a joke?"

"Veronica, I was just rickrolled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I consider that to be a crime against humanity."

Veronica's silence was even longer this time, and then she finally said, "Ohhh! The hold music, right!"

"It's just wrong," Chuck said. "Seriously, though, would it mean anything to you if I told you that Logan Echolls was missing?"

"Uh… should it?"

Chuck sighed. "I guess not," he replied. "Listen, would you be able to meet me for lunch today?"

"I would love to, Chuck, but I really don't have time to go anywhere outside of Carlsbad today."

"Cool. I'll drive down to Carlsbad."

Veronica didn't say anything. "Veronica?"

"Chuck, is something going on?"

He sighed. "Yes. There is. But I want to talk to you in person about it."

"Chuck, is everything alright with Sarah?"

"Veronica, I promise you, this has nothing to do with Sarah." Yet.

He could almost hear her nodding on the other end. "Okay," she said. "Can you meet me at noon at the FBI building?"

"I'll be there.'

* * *

Before Chuck left, he scanned the drawing of Logan and printed out a four-by-six inch copy of it. Veronica had known Logan since she was a little kid – maybe her memory would be jogged by seeing a picture of him.

As he drove south on the I-5 freeway, he began to ponder the possibility that perhaps he was actually losing his mind – that the Intersect had finally driven him around the bend. Only physical problems with his brain would've shown up on the CT scan – if he was just plain crazy, that would take a much deeper examination to determine.

When he passed through the community of Neptune, though, something seemed a little off. He couldn't place a finger on it, till he looked out to the left.

There, in the hills that rose just east of the I-5, an enormous sign dominated one hillside, similar to the Hollywood sign. It said simply, "KANE".

So in Logan's absence, Jake Kane and his Kane Software apparently now ruled over Neptune and Balboa County. Chuck sighed. That was just wrong.

Forty minutes later, he was in Carlsbad, parking underneath the office building where the FBI resided in this part of southern California. He boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the floor marked, "Federal Bureau of Investigation".

He exited the elevator into a lobby area. As he approached the reception desk, the woman behind it asked, "Can I help you, sir?"

"I'm here to see Special Agent Mars," Chuck replied.

"Is she expecting you?"

"Yes. I have a noon appointment."

The receptionist rose from behind her desk. "This way, please."

Chuck followed her down a corridor to an office, the nameplate on the door of which said simply, "V. MARS". The receptionist knocked twice, then opened the door. "Agent Mars? Your twelve o'clock is here."

Veronica was on the phone. She looked up at the receptionist, and then her face broke into a smile as she saw Chuck. She nodded and waved Chuck into the office. Placing her hand over the phone's mouthpiece, she said, "Thank you, Doris."

Chuck entered the office and sat down. Veronica was on the phone for several more moments, apparently discussing a human trafficking ring of some sort that had been busted in El Centro.

After a few minutes, she hung up the phone. Turning to look at Chuck, she smiled and said, "Hello, stranger!'

Chuck couldn't help but smile back. "So this is what an FBI agent looks like when she's not protecting a priceless government asset, huh?"

"The strong arm of the law, hard at work," Veronica replied with a laugh.

"So, you're the expert on the area," Chuck said. "Where do you want to go for lunch?"

"Well," Veronica sighed, standing up, "there's a few places here in the building, and I think we should probably go to one of those. I'm working this human trafficking case, and I can't go too far."

"Fine with me," Chuck replied as he followed her out of the office. She led him back to the elevator, which they took down a few floors. Veronica exited the elevator and led Chuck to a little place called La Place Deli.

Veronica ordered a club sandwich on rye, Chuck a Reuben. They sat down at a table, and Veronica asked, "So, what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Chuck took a deep breath. "You remember that guy I mentioned earlier, Logan Echolls?"

"Yeah," Veronica said. "You seemed to think I should know him."

Chuck nodded. "That's the thing," he replied. "You do. He's your boyfriend, and he's gone missing."

Veronica froze at the word "boyfriend". "Chuck," she said, slowly pulling her sandwich away from her mouth, "I've only had one boyfriend in the last three and a half years. That was you."

Chuck sighed. "That's the thing. He was your boyfriend, as recently as yesterday. But somehow, he has been erased – completely. Nobody remembers him except for me."

Veronica looked at him, concerned. "Chuck, I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I had a boyfriend yesterday."

"That's why I brought this along," Chuck replied. He reached into his messenger bag, withdrew the sketch of Logan, and laid it on the table between them.

Veronica looked at the picture, and her eyes widened. "I do know him," she whispered.

"Really?!" Chuck asked. "So, you remember him!"

Veronica shook her head. "I don't actually remember him," she said, "but I know I've seen his face. I feel like I've been seeing his face for years."

Chuck jumped up from his chair. "I'm not crazy!" he shouted in glee. But just then, a tone started ringing in his ear.

"Oh God!' he gasped, sitting back down. Veronica looked at him curiously.

"Are you okay?"

"I… I guess," he replied, unsure of himself. "I… it was weird."

That's when Veronica's phone rang. "Mars," she said briefly, answering it. She held the phone to her ear for a moment, nodding. "Alright. Be right there."

She hung up the phone, and looked at Chuck with a sad look on her face. "Chuck, they need me back upstairs. I've got to go, okay?"

_NO! It's not okay, because I'm afraid I'll never see you again if you go!_

"Yeah, of course," Chuck replied, trying not to let his voice betray the way he felt.

He walked her to the elevator bank. She pressed the up button, he pressed the down button. Then, turning to her, he opened his mouth to say something, but instead of speaking, decided to just embrace Veronica.

His hug caught her a little off guard, but she let herself sink into it, wrapping her arms around his waist. He let it go on for a moment, and then drew back.

Veronica looked up into his eyes, and saw nothing there but sadness. "Chuck, are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

He nodded. "I'll be fine," he said, as Veronica's elevator arrived.

The doors opened, and she stepped through, waving at Chuck. "I'll see you later, Chuck."

* * *

Chuck was headed back to Los Angeles. He was on the I-5 northbound, about fifteen minutes north of Oceanside, when he started hearing a buzzing in his ears. He prepared for the worst, but it was still an onslaught of pain and light when the headache hit.

This one was so severe that he almost lost control of the Corvette, finally coming to a skidding halt on the dirt shoulder of the freeway. It lasted for nearly two minutes, and when it finally faded, Chuck had a horrible feeling of what it meant.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Pulling out his phone, he dialed Veronica's cell phone. It rang, and rang, but there was no answer.

That's what he had been afraid of. Hanging up, he dialed the FBI office in Carlsbad. "Federal Bureau of Investigation, Carlsbad office. How may I direct your call?"

"Yes, I need to speak to Special Agent Mars, please."

Silence. "I'm sorry, sir, whom?"

"Special Agent Veronica Mars," Chuck replied, his voice growing urgent. "Petite blonde, twenty-three years old, works at that office?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but we do not have an agent at this location who matches that description."

Chuck sighed. "My apologies. Thank you."

He hung up the phone. She was gone, no question about it.

But wait a minute.

He looked at the GPS unit on his dashboard. "What the hell is going on?!"

That couldn't be. The people – it was starting to be believable to him that his brain had manufactured memories. But this was impossible.

Chuck stepped out of the Corvette onto the shoulder of the freeway. As he looked around, he saw nothing but hills and blowing wild grass. This was completely wrong. And yet, his own eyes, the milepost on the side of the road, and the GPS unit all confirmed it.

He should have been in the middle of a densely populated area. But there was nothing but wilderness.

Neptune, California, had ceased to be.


	5. Shrink City

"_I don't know what to tell you, Sarah._"

"_Ellie, this doesn't make sense. He should've snapped out of this a long time ago._"

"_I know that, and you know that. Maybe he just doesn't know that._"

"_How do we get that message across to him?_"

The voices of Chuck's sister and wife penetrated his subconsciousness. They sounded weird, almost as if they were talking through a piece of glass.

"_There's been a number of techniques… we can always try one of those._"

"_Please, Ellie, we've got to get him back._"

Finally, he was dragged from his sleep. He was lying on the couch in the Nerd Cave, and Ellie and Sarah were in there, talking to each other. But their voices sounded different than they had a moment ago. A moment ago, they had sounded, distant, scared, and unsure. Now they sounded… well, normal.

"He's added another one to the collection," Sarah said softly.

"This one's in color, too," Ellie replied.

And so it was. When Chuck had returned to Santa Monica the night before, he'd gone straight to his easel, and began drawing. When he was done with the black and white sketch, though, something just didn't feel right. And so he got out his colored pencils, and a further hour later, the face matched exactly with the name below it – at least, in Chuck's mind.

_**Veronica Janel Mars**_, it said.

"She looks almost lifelike," Ellie continued. "Chuck must have really cared a lot about her."

"Yeah," was all Sarah said.

Chuck kept his eyes closed. A moment later, Ellie left, promising to call Sarah later. When she had gone, Chuck sat up and opened his eyes.

"Good morning, Sarah," he said quietly.

"Good morning, Chuck," she replied, turning to face him. "So how much of that did you hear?"

"Enough to know that the time and effort I put into that last sketch makes you feel a little jealous," Chuck said.

Sarah sighed and sat down next to him on the couch. "So, this Veronica Mars person. Why was she so special to you?"

Chuck thought for a moment. How to explain that she had been his handler for over a year, that she had been his girlfriend for three months, and that he'd spent a month and a half in Canada the summer before having sex with her on a daily basis to keep a crazed Quebecois doctor from slicing her into little tiny pieces?

"She was just a really good friend," he said. That was simple. "She was also your second cousin."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah," Chuck said. "Your dad's cousin Lianne's daughter. But Sarah… here's the thing. When she disappeared, that wasn't all that disappeared."

"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked, sounding confused.

"A town, an entire county disappeared," Chuck replied. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he stood from the couch and crossed to his desk. He opened the laptop and pulled up Google Maps. "Okay," he said, mapping San Clemente. "You see right here, where Orange County and San Diego County meet?"

"Yeah…"

"There's supposed to be a county on the coast between them," Chuck told her. "Balboa County. It's tiny, population of approximately 200,000. The main population center is the unincorporated community of Neptune. Logan Echolls and Veronica Mars were from there."

Sarah shook her head. "Chuck, come on. An entire county couldn't have just disappeared. That doesn't make sense."

"There's a lot that doesn't make sense," Chuck replied, "which I think you're about to realize."

He took a deep breath. This was going to make him sound completely crazy. "Last summer," he began. "What happened to me?"

Sarah thought for a moment. "You were abducted in Vancouver by Fulcrum. They held you at a little airfield in Saskatchewan, and we came and got you out."

Chuck nodded. "Was I by myself?"

"No," Sarah replied. "There was somebody else abducted with you… but I can't remember…"

She furrowed her brow and looked at Chuck. "That was Veronica Mars," Chuck told her. "Now, do you remember how you got there, who your backup was?"

Sarah slowly shook her head. "I don't remember anything," she said softly.

"You got there on a retired C-141 Starlifter from Globemaster Airlines, owned by Logan Echolls," Chuck said. "Your backup was the Balboa County Sheriff's Department."

Sarah's eyes had gone wide. "Oh my God," she whispered. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Chuck replied honestly. "It seems to me like somebody is going to some pretty extreme measures to make people I know and everything associated with them disappear."

Sarah laughed in disbelief and shook her head. "Nobody, nobody could do this," she insisted.

Chuck shrugged. "What about Fulcrum?" he asked. "God only knows what technology they have access to."

Sarah gave him a look that said, _You're crazy_. "A county of 200,000 people disappeared between 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM?" she asked. "Not likely. Not even for them."

"Look," Chuck told her, "I'm just coming up with theories here. And we've got to move fast. Let me show you why."

He opened Microsoft Word and pulled up his list. He sighed when he noticed that it jumped straight from Logan Echolls to John Casey. Even his own computer betrayed him.

Chuck shook his head and added Veronica's name back onto the list.

**JOHN BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LISA BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**REESE WOODCOMB:** date met, 12 April 2009. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LOGAN ECHOLLS:** date met, 5 September 2008. Date missing, 22 November 2010.  
**VERONICA MARS:** date met, 24 July 2008. Date missing, 23 November 2010.  
**JOHN CASEY:** date met, 26 September 2007.  
**SARAH WALKER:** date met, 25 September 2007.  
**BRYCE LARKIN: **date met, 4 September 1999.  
**DEVIN WOODCOMB:** date met, 17 March 1996.  
**MORGAN GRIMES:** date met, 9 September 1986.  
**ELLIE WOODCOMB:** date met, 22 September 1981.

"Okay," Chuck said to Sarah. "So here's the deal. These people are disappearing in the reverse order from when I met them. Each time somebody disappears, it seems to be accompanied by my having a piercing, agonizing headache. I'm not sure how they're connected – it could be a total coincidence."

Sarah wasn't listening, though. "If your pattern is correct," she said quietly, "then Casey's next… and then me."

"Which is why we've got to figure out a way to stop this and reverse it," Chuck insisted. "I've lost you once. I can't lose you again."

That's when Chuck's phone rang. He picked it up and looked at it. Big Mike.

"Bartowski!"

"Yes, Big Mike?" Chuck replied.

"You gonna grace us with your presence this week?!"

"Yes, Big Mike."

"Good! I need you here today! Like, right now!"

Chuck sighed. He continued to work the Nerd Herd desk simply because he needed something to do with his time. A multi-millionaire now, he really didn't need to, but he did anyway.

He hung up the phone. "Okay, I have to go into the Buy More," he told Sarah. "I'm going to keep thinking about this, see if I can figure anything out."

"And I need to talk to Director Graham about this," she replied. "So, I'll head in with you."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Chuck was at the Nerd Herd desk, and Sarah was in the home theatre lounge with Bryce and Casey, talking to Director Graham. Big Mike had been right about needing Chuck there. He apparently only had two people on the Nerd Herd staff – Chuck and Anna.

"You had six people on staff a week ago," Chuck insisted.

"Bartowski, I've only had two people since you fired Jeff and Lester, or have you forgotten about that?!"

Chuck had a sinking suspicion as to where the other four Nerd Herders had disappeared to. They were all people who had been hired since Reese had been born.

What was weird was that despite the amount of Nerd Herd business, the store itself was not that busy. A far smaller amount of foot traffic came in and out, and there weren't that many cars in the parking lot.

"It's almost as if the population of Los Angeles is shrinking," he mused out loud to Anna.

"Hey, Chuck, I don't know about you, but I think eleven million people is a lot of people for one metropolitan area," she replied.

Chuck nearly spit out his Coke. "Eleven – what?! Eleven million?"

"Yeah, Chuck," Anna said, giving him a sideways look. "As in, the million after ten and before twelve."

That wasn't right. There were supposed to be nearly eighteen million people in the greater Los Angeles area.

"Everything's disappearing," Chuck whispered. "What the hell is going on?"

And that's when it happened. The buzzing hit his brain at full volume, followed by a splitting pain in his head so vicious that it made him recoil against the back of the Nerd Herd desk.

"_Look! He's responding!_"

"_No! There's something very wrong with him!_"

He grasped his head, trying to make the voices and the lights go away. Finally, the pain began to subside, and then passed. "Are you okay, Chuck?" Anna asked, looking down at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," he said quietly, pulling himself up by the edge of the counter. A small crowd had gathered in front of the desk.

"That looked a lot like a seizure, sir," one man standing there said. "You really might want to get that checked out."

"No, it's okay," Chuck replied. "I've got friends here who know what's going on. They can get me help."

Staggering out of the desk, he made his way to the home theatre lounge. He wrenched the door open. There was Sarah, there was Bryce –

There was Casey.

His eyes widened. "Something changed!" he gasped.

Sarah looked at him. "Chuck, what happened?"

"I had one of the headaches," he replied. "According to the list, Casey should be gone – but he's still here!"

Casey looked perplexed. "There's a list?"

Sarah turned back to Director Graham. "Uh, sir, it looks like there's been some sort of development," she told him. "We really need to check this out."

"Agreed," Graham said, sounding confused. "Get back to me as soon as you figure out what's going on."

The plasma screen switched off, and Sarah turned to Chuck. "Okay, tell me exactly what happened."

Chuck shook his head. "Can we talk about this outside?" he asked. "I need to get some air."

He headed outside, followed by Sarah, Bryce, and Casey. "Okay," he said as he walked down the length of the plaza, "so this morning, when I came in, I found out that there are only two people on the Nerd Herd staff – myself and Anna. A week ago, there were six, but Big Mike swears he hasn't hired any new Herders since I fired Jeff and Lester last year.

"Then, I was talking to Anna about how things seemed a little slow, and she made a remark about how there's eleven million people in the greater Los Angeles area. There should be EIGHTEEN million people."

Casey looked at him. "Okay, Chuck," he said, "let's assume for a moment that you haven't gone cuckoo for coco puffs, and assume that there really should be eighteen million people in L.A. Where'd the other seven million people go?"

"Same place Neptune went," Chuck replied. "Same place my kids, Ellie's kid, Logan Echolls, Veronica Mars all went. Same place I was absolutely certain that you would be when I opened the home theatre lounge."

"Which would be…"

"I have no idea," Chuck admitted. "But anyway, so we're having this conversation, and then I got hit with the headache. It was like all the others – buzzing, lights, severe pain – but this time, I also heard two people talking – one said, 'Look! He's responding!', and the other one replied, 'No! There's something very wrong with him!' Now, I don't know if Fulcrum or somebody somehow has control over me, but that's just disturb –"

His voice cut off as he froze on the sidewalk. Bryce almost ran him over. "What the hell are you doing, Chuck?" he asked.

Chuck was looking in astonishment at the empty storefront in front of him. "It's a vacant store, Chuck," Casey deadpanned. "It's not that fascinating."

"It wasn't vacant yesterday," Chuck breathed. "Yesterday, there was a deli here called Lou's. It was owned by a girl named Louise Pirelli. I dated her briefly about two months after meeting you and Sarah."

Sarah's eyes widened. "So we have our missing person," she breathed. "But she wasn't on the list, Chuck. What's going to happen next?"

Chuck laughed in disbelief. "I wish I could tell you, Sarah," he said. "I have absolutely no idea."


	6. Thanks for Nothing

**8:30 A.M., Pacific Standard Time  
Thanksgiving Day  
Thursday, November 25****th****, 2010  
Santa Monica, California**

Chuck hadn't spoken to her, hadn't talked to her more than just a couple of sentences at a time over the last two years. She had never really forgiven him for betraying her trust as thoroughly as he had.

And yet, there was clearly still a part of him, somewhere, that cared for Lou Pirelli. Otherwise, why would she have been the one to disappear? That just didn't make sense.

He debated whether or not to add a sketch of her to the collection, but in the end, decided he owed it to her. If they had never met, maybe this wouldn't have happened to her.

Chuck laughed bitterly. It seemed like a lot of people would be better off if they had never met him.

He began to sketch, and was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn't hear the door open behind him. For nearly half an hour, Sarah stood behind him, watching him work. When he finished, she saw him cock his head, as if unsatisfied. He then reached into his toolbox, withdrew a single light brown colored pencil, shaded in Lou's eyes, and then nodded, as if finally satisfied.

He withdrew a calligraphy pen and carefully inscribed _**Louise Maria Pirelli**_ at the bottom. He stood, unclipped the sketch from the easel, turned to hang it on the wall –

And nearly jumped through the ceiling at the sight of Sarah. "Jesus!" he exclaimed, dropping the sketch to the floor.

Sarah was startled as well, and took an involuntary step back. "How long have you been there?" Chuck asked, bending down to pick up the sketch.

"Half an hour," Sarah replied. "Why didn't you ever tell me about this? All this… it's incredible, Chuck."

He shrugged. "Modesty, I guess. I mean, I knew you were already overwhelmed by my mad computer skills, and I didn't want to totally blow you away."

Sarah rolled her eyes and laughed. "Humility, thy name is NOT Charles Bartowski."

Ordinarily, a remark like that probably would have made Chuck laugh as well, but he simply wasn't in a laughing mood. He smiled wanly, and then went to the wall to tack the sketch of Lou up next to the sketch of Veronica.

"So," Sarah said, changing the subject, "I called Carina and asked her to fly in tonight. Her, Bryce, and Casey are the only other people I can remember being on the mission to extract you from Canada. I want the four of us to sit down with you and brainstorm, see if we can possibly begin to figure out what's going on."

Chuck nodded. "That makes sense," he said, pushing a tack into the fourth corner of the sketch. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

He brushed past Sarah and stepped into the bathroom. Curious, she followed him, just in time to watch him pop two Motrin into his mouth and chase them with water.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Every time somebody disappears, it's preceded by me having a splitting headache," Chuck told her.

"Right, we've established that."

"Anyway, I figure, my brain is physically fine. The head CT showed us that. That means that these headaches must be the result of a chemically induced inflammation, and if I take an anti-inflammatory preemptively, that might stop them from happening. And if I don't have headaches, maybe people won't disappear…"

His voice trailed off. It was pretty clear that he was starting to grasp at straws here, but it was all he had left.

Sarah looked at him and shook her head. "Chuck," she said sadly, "if this is Fulcrum, or if it's some sort of phenomenon – natural, man-made, whatever – I don't think that extra strength ibuprofen is going to stop it."

Chuck slammed his fists down on the counter. "Be that as it may, I have to at least TRY," he growled. "I cannot just sit by and watch while everybody I care about disappears one by one! Too many are already gone!"

He turned to face her. He had a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. "If it keeps happening, I'll eventually lose you," he said. "I can't do that again. I barely recovered after you jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge. I don't think I can take having you disappear again."

Tears had begun to spill down his face. "You mean too much to me," he whispered.

Sarah's own eyes had begun to well with tears. She couldn't stand seeing Chuck in this much pain. She wrapped her arms around his back and held on to him as though for dear life.

After a few minutes, he broke the embrace and wordlessly headed back into the Nerd Cave. Opening his laptop, he pulled up the list and added _Louise Pirelli, met: 12 November 2007, missing: 24 November 2010_, and then, almost as if an afterthought, added _Carina Hansen, met: 17 October 2007_.

**JOHN BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LISA BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**REESE WOODCOMB:** date met, 12 April 2009. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LOGAN ECHOLLS:** date met, 5 September 2008. Date missing, 22 November 2010.  
**VERONICA MARS:** date met, 24 July 2008. Date missing, 23 November 2010.  
**LOUISE PIRELLI:** date met, 12 November 2007. Date missing, 24 November 2010.  
**CARINA HANSEN:** date met, 17 October 2007.  
**JOHN CASEY:** date met, 26 September 2007.  
**SARAH WALKER:** date met, 25 September 2007.  
**BRYCE LARKIN: **date met, 4 September 1999.  
**DEVIN WOODCOMB:** date met, 17 March 1996.  
**MORGAN GRIMES:** date met, 9 September 1986.  
**ELLIE WOODCOMB:** date met, 22 September 1981.

Sarah looked at him strangely. "You think Carina might be affected by this? I mean, why would she…"

Chuck gave her a look, and she stopped. "Right," she said simply. "I almost forgot. The night of my memorial service."

Chuck sighed and looked at the ceiling. "It's been almost three years, Sarah," he replied quietly.

Sarah was about to say something, but she stopped herself. "You know what, we're not doing this right now," she said. "If that list is right, and we've got who knows how much time left with each other, we're certainly not going to fight about this on Thanksgiving Day."

Chuck's eyes widened. "Oh, FUCK."

Sarah allowed herself to smile. "You completely forgot, didn't you?"

"Yes… God DAMMIT!"

* * *

Casey had tried to beg off of Thanksgiving dinner at the Woodcombs. Sarah had insisted that he be there, if for no other reason than for the benefit of his cover. "What the hell am I supposed to do with Carina?" he growled.

"Anything that doesn't involve a headboard," Sarah deadpanned. "Bring her as your date."

"No no no!" Chuck jumped in. "Bad plan! Morgan!"

Sarah sighed and covered the mouthpiece of the phone. "Morgan will deal with it, Chuck," she told him. "Besides which, he's got a girlfriend, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, but he's got commitment issues," Chuck said. "Anna keeps trying to get him to pop the question, and he keeps refusing… I'm afraid if he sees Carina, he'll do something stupid."

Sarah sighed again, and pulled her hand away from the phone. "Casey," she said, "can you and Carina be convincing as a couple without a headboard and handcuffs being involved?"

There was no answer. Sarah looked at the phone strangely. "Casey?"

"Hello, Sarah," came Carina's voice, sounding a little huskier than usual. "Casey's a little… tied up right now. Give us, say, fifteen minutes?"

Sarah rolled her eyes and hit the "end" button on the phone. "Wow," she said to Chuck, "I called Carina maybe four hours ago, and she's already got Casey handcuffed to his bed."

Chuck raised his eyebrows. "That is SO more than I needed to hear."

He headed to the kitchen. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a pumpkin pie by four o'clock."

* * *

An hour later, all the windows of the apartment were open, the fans were running full blast, and Chuck was on the phone with the Santa Monica Fire Department, trying to convince them that, yes, the fire alarm was, in fact, a false alarm.

Trying not to laugh, Sarah picked up her phone and called Director Graham. "Good afternoon, Director, and happy Thanksgiving."

"Likewise, Walker. Any progress?"

"We're meeting with Agent Hansen and Major Casey tonight for a brainstorming session," she replied. "However, that, um, really isn't what this call is about."

"Oh?"

"Is that government food prep kitchen still operating here in Los Angeles?"

Graham was silent for a moment, then started laughing. "Please, please tell me that Bartowski ruined Thanksgiving dinner."

"No, sir, just the pumpkin pie. Turns out that making one on short notice isn't really his forte."

She could almost hear Graham shaking his head. "When and where?"

"If it could meet us at the Woodcomb apartment at 4:00, that'd be great."

"You're gonna owe me, Walker."

* * *

When the Corvette pulled up in front of Devin and Ellie's apartment complex, a black Chrysler 300 was sitting out front. As Chuck and Sarah got out of the Corvette, a man dressed in a black suit stepped out of the 300, holding a white cardboard box.

"Mr. Bartowski?" he called, approaching Chuck.

"Yeah, that's me," Chuck replied.

"I understand you had a bit of a situation involving a pumpkin pie, sir," the man said, handing Chuck the box.

Chuck looked at the man, then at the box, then opened it. A perfectly cooked pumpkin pie was inside.

He looked over at Sarah. "I'm bringing a CIA pumpkin pie to dinner?"

"Actually, a Secret Service pumpkin pie, sir," the man in black told him. "Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy."

Thanksgiving dinner was… well, awkward, at best. Morgan was shocked beyond measure to see Carina there, and the looks he kept giving both her and Ellie were not making Anna happy. Morgan got smacked at least twice during dinner.

To make matters worse, Bryce had gotten… well, not very creative in finding a date for Thanksgiving dinner. He had ended up calling and inviting, of all people, Jill Tanner.

Chuck was shocked to see Jill, but he decided to be mature about it. Sarah and Ellie, on the other hand, somehow ended up next to one another and kept having whispered conversations that would occasionally leak a "bitch" or a "slut".

Chuck was not amused by any of this. Finally, toward the end of dinner, he put his foot down.

"Alright, folks, we are ALL adults here," he growled. "Ellie, Sarah, it's been seven years since Jill dumped me. Could you give her a break?"

He turned to Morgan. "Morgan, would you stop staring at Carina? She's here with Casey, and if I'm not mistaken, you have your own date."

Chuck sighed and shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the day when I was the most sensible person at the table," he said, "especially considering everything I've been going through the last few days."

He lifted the champagne glass from the table in front of him. "To missing friends," he said sarcastically. "Oh, and here's to giving thanks for whatever."

Chuck drained the glass, and then looked at it disgustedly. "Sparkling cider? I need something with a little kick," he grumbled, and then turned and headed for the kitchen.

Bryce looked across the table at Sarah. "What the hell was that?"

"No idea," she replied, pushing her chair back and following Chuck.

She found him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, an opened bottle of Corona in his hand. "Chuck, what the –"

He held up a hand. "Don't, Sarah. You're just as much a part of this as anybody else."

"Chuck, you're acting like a kid," Sarah replied angrily, "which, given that you were just telling us all to act like adults, is pretty ironic, don't you think?"

"Oh, well, EXCUSE ME," he snapped. "Here I am, worried that you're gonna disappear before the weekend's over, and you have nothing better to do than sit at the dinner table and play 'high school gossip time' with my sister. I mean, come on!"

Sarah sighed, but didn't say anything. He was right. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "You're right. But you can't get too drunk."

"Why the hell not?"

"I still need you to sit down with me, Casey, Carina, and Bryce tonight," Sarah replied. "We've got to figure out what's going on."

* * *

It was almost midnight when they met in Bryce's apartment to discuss the situation. He had to drive Jill back to her hotel, and that took far longer than it should have.

By this point, Chuck was working on his eighth Corona. He was drinking them slowly, but they were making him tired and melancholy – not a very good mood for being debriefed.

"So, here's the deal," Sarah said. "We all remember going to Canada and getting Chuck out, right?"

"How could I forget?" Carina asked. "I drove from Lawrence, Kansas, to Beauval, Saskatchewan, via Windsor, Ontario, with Bryce on the mission."

"Okay, but here's the thing," Sarah replied. "How did Casey and I get there? Who was our backup? And most importantly, who was the other person we extracted along with Chuck?"

There were no answers, just a lot of blank stares. "Ummm…" Casey began. He shook his head. "I really have no idea."

Bryce narrowed his eyes. "I remember that Casey and I executed a doctor behind a building for conducting genetic experiments… on…"

"Veronica Mars!" Chuck interrupted, sounding somewhat drunk. "FBI Special Agent Veronica Mars! You were there with the Balboa County Sheriff's Department, led by her father, Sheriff Keith Mars! Y'all flew in on a C-141 Starlifter from Globemaster Airlines, which was owned by Logan Echolls. But guess what – they've all DISAPPEARED!"

"Chuck, are you drunk?" Carina asked.

"Goddamn skippy," Chuck growled. "I have to be to deal wi – AGHA!"

The pain shot through his head, causing him to tip forward and fall out of his chair. He looked up, and saw four faces looking down at him, concern written on all of them. He blinked –

And Carina and Casey were both gone.


	7. Getting Intersectual

_**Author's note:**__ this chapter is mildly smutty. Now, I must make quite clear, there's nothing explicit; however, if you have an active imagination, there's probably gonna be some bom-chicka-wow-wow in your mind's eye._

_Either way, I'm gonna say that this chapter might be Not Safe For Work._

* * *

**JOHN BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LISA BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**REESE WOODCOMB:** date met, 12 April 2009. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LOGAN ECHOLLS:** date met, 5 September 2008. Date missing, 22 November 2010.  
**VERONICA MARS:** date met, 24 July 2008. Date missing, 23 November 2010.  
**LOUISE PIRELLI:** date met, 12 November 2007. Date missing, 24 November 2010.  
**CARINA HANSEN:** date met, 17 October 2007. Date missing, 25 November 2010.  
**JOHN CASEY:** date met, 26 September 2007. Date missing, 25 November 2010.  
**SARAH WALKER:** date met, 25 September 2007.  
**BRYCE LARKIN: **date met, 4 September 1999.  
**DEVIN WOODCOMB:** date met, 17 March 1996.  
**MORGAN GRIMES:** date met, 9 September 1986.  
**ELLIE WOODCOMB:** date met, 22 September 1981.

There it was, in bold print, black and white. The cursor blinked incessantly on the screen in front of him, mocking him.

She was next. There was no question about it. The next time his head felt like it was going to split apart, he would open his eyes, and Sarah would be gone.

Los Angeles was still shrinking, too. Down to eight and a half million and falling. The Inland Empire had disappeared east of San Bernardino. Colton, Redlands, Yucaipa, Banning, Beaumont – all gone.

After Casey and Carina had disappeared, Chuck had completely flipped out. Bryce and Sarah, of course, hadn't realized that anything was wrong, until Chuck explained.

Then Chuck had suggested contacting Director Graham. Sarah had looked at him and said, "Director who?"

It made sense, of course, in its own twisted way. Chuck hadn't spoken to Graham for the first time until long after he had met Casey.

Two more sketches had gone up on the wall the night before. When he'd finished Carina's, he had gone back, added a slight red tint to her hair and green shading to her eyes, before inscribing _**Carina Renee Hansen**_ on the bottom. Casey's, though, had been left in black and white. It just looked more appropriate that way.

_**John Emmanuel Casey**_, read the inscription at the bottom. Chuck found himself suddenly unsure as to how he knew Carina and Casey's middle names. He was actually quite certain that neither of them had ever told him. And yet… he knew.

Chuck hadn't been able to fall asleep. He had laid in the bed, all night long, just staring at Sarah. He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid to let her out of his sight.

She woke up just before 7:00 A.M., and saw him looking at her. "Good morning," she said softly.

"Morning," he replied.

Sarah looked beyond him, at the clock on the wall. "7:00 A.M., day after Thanksgiving, Chuck," she said. "Shouldn't you be at the Buy More?"

He shook his head. "I'm not going to work today," Chuck replied. "Neither are you."

"Chuck…"

"Listen, Sarah, I'm sitting here in fear that you're going to disappear at any moment," he almost whispered. "You had better believe that I'm going to spend as much time as possible with you."

There was so much desperation, so much fear in Chuck's voice that it brought tears to Sarah's eyes. "Okay," she said quietly, putting a hand to the side of his face and gently running her fingertips along his jawline.

Chuck closed his eyes, and brought his own hand up to Sarah's. Grasping her hand, he brought it to his mouth and gently kissed each of her fingers. Then, re-opening his eyes, he reached around her back, pulled her to him, and kissed her.

This kiss was not brief. This kiss was not even of medium length. This kiss was long and hungry. They broke for a second, both breathing heavily, looked into each others' eyes, and went right back to it.

Sarah pressed herself as closely to Chuck as she could, sliding a leg between his. If they weren't going to have very much more time together, due to whatever force of nature or of man that was slowly ruining Chuck's life, then she was damn well going to make this little time left as memorable as she could.

She smiled as she felt Chuck's body begin to respond to the attention she was paying to it. _So predictable_, she thought. _Especially in the mornings_.

But that was okay. His next move was equally predictable – hands grasping at the back of her nightgown, unconsciously trying to shift it upwards, and eventually off of her. Sarah helped the process along by pulling her hands off of his back and unbuttoning the nightgown.

Chuck pulled his lips away from hers. He lifted his head a little and whispered in her ear. "Aren't you the helpful one," he breathed, a playful tone to his voice. "And so predictable, too."

Okay, so maybe Chuck wasn't the only predictable one currently in the launch stage of burning passion in their bedroom. But Sarah didn't really care at this point. She lifted her arms over her head to allow him to slide the nightgown up and off of her body. With a flick of Chuck's wrist, it went flying toward the corner of the bedroom, where it collapsed in a heap of cloth.

Sarah reached her hand up to Chuck's shoulder and gently pushed him over so that he lay on his back. "Now, this just isn't fair," she whispered, sliding her body on top of his. "I'm completely naked, and here you still are, wearing a t-shirt and shorts."

"You're right," Chuck replied. "That's just not fair. I think we need to make things more fair."

Chuck grabbed the bottom of his shirt and rapidly pulled it up over his head, while Sarah, without even looking, slid the waistband of his shorts toward his feet. She looked him in the eye.

"There," she said. "We're on somewhat more even footing now."

Chuck smiled up at Sarah, and she realized that he had, at least for the moment, forgotten about his problems. _Let's keep it that way, shall we?_ she thought.

Placing a hand on either side of Chuck, she pushed her body up slightly. Chuck's eyes widened, as he was, as always, momentarily captivated by her… impressive assets. Sarah smiled. "You are such a man sometimes," she whispered.

"I am what I am," he replied. Then, with no warning, he grabbed her around the waist, and sat up. Her body slipped a little, and she slowly sank downward onto him.

"See what I mean?" he asked, a wicked little smile on his face. Sarah had no coherent reply, just moaned, "Mmmmm," into his ear as she bit her bottom lip.

Chuck had never failed to be amazed – ever since that first time on Catalina Island, nearly a year and a half before – just how GOOD sex with Sarah always was. He had never, not ONCE gotten bored with her.

Once or twice, it had been what Chuck would describe as LITERALLY mind-blowing. He thought of it that way because on those occasions, as he had approached his personal pinnacle, the Intersect had gone utterly haywire, and just started firing off random, completely unrelated images that somehow boosted every single one of his senses. Absolutely mind-blowing.

He noticed that the urgency that had been missing the other night was back with a vengeance – but it was a slow burn. It was almost as if Sarah was a pile of hot coals, just smoldering, waiting for fuel to be added so that the fire could flame up, burning out of control.

Chuck knew exactly what fuel would set her off. Leaning his head over, he gently kissed the right hand side of Sarah's neck, moving toward her throat. Moaning, she leaned her head back, arching her neck toward him. He kept applying gentle kisses to her neck as he moved around, and when he reached her left ear, he bared his teeth and gently bit her earlobe.

"Ohhhh GOD," she moaned, reflexively pressing her hips downward in a maneuver that practically made Chuck go cross-eyed. "Whoa," he whispered, blinking –

And that's when things started getting weird. When his eyes reopened, Sarah was still there, and they were still rather occupied, but the walls and the ceiling of the room had all turned white. The room had suddenly become brightly lit.

"What the hell?" he said.

"Is… is some… thing wrong?" Sarah asked, not stopping what she was doing.

Chuck blinked again and shook his head. The room went back to normal – and then the Intersect started acting wonky.

"No, nothing's wrong at all," he replied with a grin. He was certainly going to enjoy this.

Sarah's breathing got heavier, and her moans got louder – probably loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but tough for them. Chuck closed his eyes and held on to Sarah – he was about to be taken for one hell of a ride.

And that's when the Intersect started firing off the images – but they weren't random, like they always had been in the past. Instead, they appeared to be…

Surveillance photos of him and Sarah, _in flagrante delicto_, in a number of different places and situations. Ordinarily, that would've been rather disturbing to Chuck to see those pop up in the Intersect, but right at that moment, in the state his mind was in, they were instead rather erotic…

A moment later, Chuck fell backward on the bed. "Good God," he whispered, his eyes wide and a smile on his face.

Sarah smiled down at him, and slid off of him. Lying down next to him, she laid her head on his shoulder and rested an arm on his chest, tracing circles right above his sternum. "Okay, so it's 7:17 now," she said softly. "What are we gonna do for the rest of the day?"

She looked up at Chuck, and from the grin on his face, he could have been the Big Bad Wolf. "I don't THINK so, bub," she said with a laugh, smacking him on the chest.

"Oh, but why not?"

Sarah shook her head. "Can I have at least like twenty minutes' break between sessions?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure it'll take YOU at LEAST that long to recover."

Chuck raised an eyebrow, and then looked downward. "Nope," he replied. "I'm good!"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I am going to take a shower," she said, rolling over and swinging her legs off of the bed. "Although, if you would like, you're certainly welcome to join me…"

Chuck just watched for a moment as she practically sauntered off to the bathroom, making sure to emphasize the sway of her hips as she went. _God, I love that woman_, he thought –

And then he was struck once again by the cold, hard reality that she could disappear at any moment. He didn't know what he was going to do if that happened. It wasn't just the sex. It SO wasn't even close to just being the sex. It was everything about Sarah. She had worked her way into every little part of Chuck's life, and there was no way he could possibly be whole again if she disappeared.

Chuck closed his eyes and said a little prayer, begging God to not let Sarah disappear. He just didn't think he could live without her.

And with that thought, he sat up and got out of the bed, heading toward the bathroom. "You better run and hide!" he yelled, allowing a smile to return to his face.

"BRING IT ON!"

* * *

It ended up being nearly another hour before Chuck was worn out enough to have to take a break. Sarah said that if neither of them was going to work, and if they were going to spend as much time together as they possibly could – just in case – then they should go do something ridiculously, stupidly fun.

And that was how they ended up on a steep hill outside of the town of Frazier Park just before noon. The hill was covered in snow, and they both had plastic sleds. Chuck had already been down it half a dozen times, but Sarah had yet to go down it. She just stood at the top, looking down the snow-covered slope with trepidation.

"COME ON!" Chuck yelled up the hill. "After everything you've done in life, you're scared of a little snow?!"

"SHUT UP, OR NO MORE SEX!"

"Wow," Chuck muttered. "Hell of a negotiator."

Smiling, he began to trudge up the hill, leaving his sled at the bottom. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

He just shook his head and kept going. "Why are you up here?" Sarah asked when he reached the top.

"Because you seem to have a problem going down," Chuck replied. "Now give me your sled."

Sarah glared at him balefully, but handed over the sled. "Okay," Chuck said. "Now, this is a two person sled. I'm going to sit down on the front of it, and hold on to the sled. You're going to sit behind me, and hold on to me. Got that?"

"How do I know you're not going to steer us to an unfortunate death at the hands of a Jeffrey Pine?"

Chuck grinned. "You DON'T, and that's half the fun of it!"

He carefully set the sled down and sat down on the front end of it, digging his heels in to keep himself and the sled from going anywhere. "Now, you sit down behind me, and wrap your arms around my waist," he instructed Sarah.

He could feel her weight on the sled behind him as she sat down, and then felt her arms wrap around his waist. "Don't you dare go until I'm ready," she muttered.

"How are you not ready?!" he asked.

"I'm just no- AHHH!"

With a huge smile on his face, Chuck pulled his heels out of the snow and pushed off, launching the sled down the hill. "CHUCK GODDAMMIT I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!" Sarah screamed into his back.

"RIGHT, WHATEVER!" he yelled back. "NOW, WHEN I YELL BAIL, JUMP OFF THE SLED!"

"WHAT?!"

"BAIL!!"

And he threw himself off the sled. Fortunately, years of being in the CIA had conditioned Sarah to follow instructions, and she followed him. They rolled to a stop, with her landing on top of him, as the sled crashed into a stand of pine trees.

"You see?!" she grumped. "I could've been killed!"

"I wouldn't have let you," he replied, smiling. He lifted his head a little and kissed her. "Mmmm, angry Sarah. I like."

"Don't you dare," she shot back. "It's too cold!"

And yet, despite her insistence that it was too cold, they barely made it back to the Corvette clothed. By the time they reached the hotel at the truck stop by the I-5 freeway, they were both about ready to rip each other's clothes off.

And half an hour after checking into the hotel, they had christened the bed and the shower.

They didn't even bother trying to drive back down to Santa Monica. They stayed there in the town of Lebec that night. They both fell asleep, exhausted, satisfied, and happy.

Chuck woke up a couple times during the night, but Sarah was still there each time.

The second time, he smiled, curled up behind her, and allowed himself to relax, just a little.

Maybe, for a while, things would be okay.


	8. Just As Soon As I Belong

After the day on the mountain, Chuck began to relax a little. He was still fairly traumatized from all the disappearances, but Sarah had been making sure to spend extra time with him, and to take care of him a little more carefully.

Five days had passed since Casey and Carina had disappeared. Naturally, Chuck had spent that whole time on pins and needles – just wondering when Sarah was going to disappear. But her continued presence allowed him to relax – just a little bit.

Sarah had very carefully documented everything that Chuck had told her about what had happened thus far, in addition to documenting the blank spaces that she, Bryce, and Ellie had about what had happened over the last three years – blank spaces caused by mostly by the disappearances of John Casey and Veronica Mars.

Chuck's dreams had gotten strange, and very vivid. As he slept, he dreamed he was in jail. He had no idea why he was in jail – just that he was there. It wasn't an ordinary jail – almost completely white, and brightly lit, but it was definitely a prison.

He had visitors in this "jail" pretty regularly – Veronica and Logan would come in, sometimes Casey, sometimes Bryce. Sarah would come in, sometimes by herself, sometimes with John and Lisa. Ellie and Devin would visit too, almost always with Reese.

What Chuck couldn't decipher about these dreams was why he had a mixture of people who hadn't disappeared and people who had disappeared visiting him. Did this mean that everybody else was going to disappear as well?

And what did the fact that they never talked to him mean? He would ask them what he had done, why he was there, and all anybody would ever do was stare at him, usually sadly. It was strange, and a little disturbing as well.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Chuck and Sarah had driven up to Santa Barbara in her Porsche. It was slightly reminiscent of the road trip they had taken to Vancouver a year and a half before – though that had been in her old Porsche, which was now scrap metal in a Seattle junkyard, having been blown to kingdom come by Fulcrum.

Their time in Santa Barbara had been spent doing not much of anything productive. They spent a lot of time in their hotel room, but they also visited the beach, went for sunset strolls through the college campus, and in general enjoyed each other's company.

Chuck wouldn't admit it to anybody, but he knew deep down that the reason he was spending so much time with Sarah was in order to prepare himself for what he now regarded as her inevitable disappearance. He knew it was going to happen, he just didn't know when, or where.

Sarah had been handling the situation pretty well, although there had been one night when she had broken down crying in Chuck's arms. "I don't want to disappear," she had said quietly through her tears. "I'm scared of just – being gone. I'm scared to leave you here by yourself."

Given how terrified Chuck was of just that, he hadn't been able to really say anything in reply, but rather, just held Sarah in his arms, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay, that he'd be alright. The words rang hollow in his own ears.

And so it was that Chuck found himself on the beach on Wednesday morning, taking an early morning walk, on Santa Barbara's odd east-facing West Beach, watching the sun rise. It was a beautiful sight, the sun rising over Santa Barbara Harbor, the soft light of the cold morning illuminating the sky.

As Chuck approached Stearns Wharf, he suddenly heard something that made his blood run cold. An intermittent buzz.

His eyes went wide, and his head whipped around, searching, desperate to find a source of the buzz. But there was nothing.

"No," he whispered. "No, not yet!"

Chuck turned tail and started to run back down the beach, back toward the West Beach Inn, where Sarah lay in their bed. The buzz came back, and then disappeared again. Again it came. Chuck clapped his hands over his ears.

The frequency of the buzzing increased, the volume getting progressively louder. "NO NO NO NO NO!" Chuck screamed, probably looking like a maniac to anybody passing on the street.

The West Beach Inn came into view. As Chuck ran across Cabrillo Boulevard, the buzzing became consistent, drowning out almost every other noise.

Chuck fumbled with his wallet as he tore onto the property, pulling out his key card. He barreled toward the room, disregarding his own safety, the safety of anybody in his path. He came to a halt in front of his door, and lifted the key card with trembling hand to slide it into the slot –

And the bolt of pain shot through his head with more intensity than any before it. It made him black out momentarily, and he collapsed to the sidewalk in front of the room. "NOOOOOOOOO!" he cried, as the pain began to recede.

He sat on the sidewalk for a moment after the pain was gone, not moving. Finally, reaching up to the doorknob, he dragged himself upwards. Inserting the key card, he opened the door –

There was no evidence that Sarah Walker had ever been there. One half of the bed was a mess, the other half perfectly made up. Only Chuck's clothes were in the closet, only his toiletries in the bathroom.

Chuck felt like his entire body had gone numb. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't.

He staggered outside, seeing where he was going but not really comprehending. Turning, he headed for the parking lot, hanging on to the last shreds of hope.

And they slipped from his fingers as he turned into the lot and there wasn't a black Porsche 911 to be found. The parking spot where it had been stood empty.

Chuck refused to believe. He pulled his cell phone from his belt, and pulled up the phone book. He scrolled down to the "S"s –

No Sarah. Angrily shaking his head and wiping tears from his eyes, he exited the phone book and dialed her number from memory. He pressed the call button.

"_We're sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please hang up and try again._"

Chuck collapsed to the asphalt, pulling his knees to his chest. He tried to hold in the sob, but it was just too much. It escaped, bursting forth, a wail of anguish coming from his mouth.

If anybody heard it, they ignored him, or wrote him off as crazy. He rocked back and forth in a fetal position for nearly five minutes, filling the parking lot with the sounds of his grief.

Finally, he stood to his feet. He felt like he was the walking dead. He didn't know where to go, what to do. He left the parking lot and began walking down Cabrillo Boulevard.

When he had gone about two blocks, he was confronted by a man coming out of a church. "Word of Life," the church's signboard read.

"Are you alright, sir?" the man asked Chuck, clearly concerned.

"I lost her," Chuck whispered. "She's gone."

"Who's gone, sir?"

"My wife… my Sarah. I lost her once, and she came back, and then I lost her again."

The man's eyes widened. "That… that's horrible, sir. I'm so sorry. Would you like to come inside? Perhaps you could use a drink of water… perhaps you would like some time to talk to God?"

That's when something inside of Chuck snapped. "God?" he asked.

"Yes," the man replied. "He is always with you. He will never leave you or forsake you."

"Oh really," Chuck said softly, almost in a whisper. "Where was He when my kids disappeared? When my friends went away? When my wife was taken from me?"

"Sir…"

"No, REALLY," Chuck growled, his voice growing louder. "Where was God? Where the hell was He then?"

"Sir, we can't understand God's will…"

"Oh, I understand," Chuck shot back. He was yelling now. "God has abandoned me. He has INDEED forsaken me. So, I say FUCK GOD, and FUCK YOU!"

And with that, Chuck brushed past the man, stalking down Cabrillo Boulevard. He turned left when he reached Garden Street. He crossed the train tracks, and that's when he saw it.

The Triple L Bar. He headed directly for the bar, pushed open the doors, and headed inside.

"Good morning, sir," said a woman sitting at the bar, who, from her nametag, appeared to be the manager. "Can I help you?"

"I need a drink," Chuck said. "A stiff one."

The manager frowned. "I'm sorry, sir," she replied, "but we don't open until noon."

"Please," Chuck replied, his voice pleading. "My wife just disappeared."

The manager sighed. "I'm sorry. We just can't. It's illegal."

Chuck took a deep breath, walked up to the manager, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Give me something to drink or so help me I will BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND."

The manager stood up, clearly a little frightened. "Alright, there's no need to get violent, sir," she said. "Have a seat, and I'll get something for you."

Ten minutes later, Chuck had just downed his fourth shot of whiskey, when the door opened. "Charles Bartowski?"

"That's me!" Chuck shouted over his shoulder.

A hand grabbed his left arm and dragged him off the stool. "Charles Bartowski, you are under arrest for assault and threat of arson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, a public defender will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?"

* * *

Six hours later, Chuck was lying on a bunk in a jail cell at the Santa Barbara Police Department, staring at the ceiling. He had cried himself out hours before. Now, he was trying to not think about Sarah, and he was failing miserably.

Every thought that ran through his head was somehow connected to her. He began to suppose that the only thing keeping his sane was the fact that, since she had disappeared, she was no longer in the Intersect.

That didn't keep him from seeing her face every time he closed his eyes. He could see her perfectly – the flawless alabaster skin, her ice blue eyes, the strands of gold flowing from her head.

That was the image before his eyes as his eyelids fell closed. He lay for a few moments, his eyes closed, opening them only when he heard the jingling of keys.

Slowly, he turned his head toward the door of the cell. A police officer stood there, unlocking the door. Behind the police officer was Bryce Larkin.

Bryce didn't say anything as the officer let Chuck out of the cell, just signed a form on a clipboard that he was handed, and turned to leave the building. Chuck followed him out to the parking lot, where Bryce's BMW sat.

Once they were in the car, Bryce turned to Chuck. "Who disappeared?"

Chuck closed his eyes and took a breath. "Sarah," he said softly. "My wife. Your old partner. Do you remember her at all?"

Bryce shook his head. "I don't," he said sadly. "I'm sorry."

Chuck sighed, and turned his head away from Bryce, staring out the shotgun window. Bryce didn't say anything more, just started up the car and drove out of the parking lot.

The ride was silent for the next hour, until it was interrupted by the sound of Bryce's phone ringing. "Hello?" he said, answering it quietly.

"Bryce, where are you?"

Bryce sighed. It was Jill. "I'm in Ventura," he replied. "There was… there was another disappearance. Chuck's wife, apparently. He got drunk and threatened a bar manager. He got arrested, and I had to come pick him up."

"Oh, no," Jill said softly. "Oh, poor Chuck… Bryce, can I talk to him?"

"Jill, I don't know if that's such a good idea…"

Chuck's head turned slightly at the name "Jill". "Are you talking to Jill?" he asked.

Bryce nodded. "She wants to talk to you," he replied.

Chuck didn't say anything, just held out his hand for the phone. Hesitantly, Bryce handed it over.

"Jill?" Chuck said quietly, holding the phone to his ear.

"Chuck, I'm so sorry," Jill said. "I can't believe this is happening to you, it just seems so unf-"

Jill's voice was cut off as Chuck's head suddenly seemed to explode, completely without warning. Bright lights flashed before his eyes, his ears rang with the cacophony of a thousand church bells. A lance of pain shot through his head, leaving a dazed Chuck Bartowski in its wake.

When he came out of it, he looked downward, and picked up Bryce's phone from his lap. "Jill?" he said softly.

"_If you'd like to place a call, please hang up and try again._"

Chuck handed Bryce's phone back to him. "Jill's gone," he said simply, his voice barely a whisper.

Bryce looked over at him strangely. "Who?"


	9. I Can't Go Back to How It Was

_Thanks to **Go-Chuck-Go** for helping me out with some ideas to get past Ye Olde Writer's Block._

* * *

Bryce's BMW rolled into the parking lot of Chuck's apartment complex. Chuck was still feeling like his stomach had been ripped out through his nose…

And then it got worse. As small a thing it was, when he saw that his Corvette was gone and there was a stupid Toyota Yaris parked where it had been – his old faithful, the Number Three Herder – he literally punched Bryce's dashboard.

"Dude, what the hell?" Bryce asked, slightly annoyed. "I mean, I know you're having a really rough time of it all, but punching a BMW… it really isn't cool."

Chuck sighed. "I'm sorry," he replied. "It's just that on top of everything else today, I come home to discover that the Corvette ZO-6 I've had for over a year has been replaced by a frackin' Toyota… it's just too much."

He climbed out of the BMW without another word. Bryce silently followed him up to his apartment.

Almost as soon as Chuck walked inside, his phone started ringing. The _Torchwood_ ringtone told him immediately it was Morgan.

Chuck was about to answer it, when he had an epiphany. "Wait just a minute," he breathed. "If Jill's gone… and _Torchwood_ came on the air LONG after I met her… then what the hell is that doing as Morgan's ringtone?"

And immediately it changed, to the Super Mario Brothers theme. Chuck and Bryce both just stared at the phone. "Okay, that was weird," Bryce said.

Chuck looked up at him in shock. "Wait, you NOTICED?!"

"Yeah," Bryce replied, a look of confusion on his face. "I mean, it's a little weird. I don't think I've ever heard of a show called _Torchwood_, but that song that was playing… I definitely know it. And it definitely changed mid-song."

Chuck put a hand to his mouth. "Oh my GOD, I'm not crazy!"

Bryce smiled and shook his head. "Nobody ever said you were, Chuck. Just a little unwell."

"Yeah, yeah. I know, right now you can't tell."

"Okay, just stop," Bryce interrupted him. "We're not having a discussion in Matchbox 20 terms."

"Fair enough," Chuck replied, as the phone started spouting the Super Mario Brothers theme again. He picked it up from the counter. "Hello?"

"Chuck, Morgan. Heard you had a little run-in with the law this morning."

Chuck sighed deeply. "Yeah. Pretty much. Sarah disappeared, and I threatened to burn a bar down."

Morgan was silent for a moment. "Dude, I have no idea who Sarah is, but she must have been pretty special if you were gonna set a business on fire because of her."

"I was married to her, Morgan."

Silence. "Damn," Morgan finally breathed. "Sounds like you could use a pick-me-up."

Chuck laughed bitterly. "I could use a bottle of Ambien and a fifth of Jack."

Bryce's eyes widened. "Don't you FUCKING dare," he whispered.

Chuck shook his head. "Don't worry, Bryce, I'm not gonna off myself."

"Seriously, dude," Morgan continued. "Mosey on over to Ellie and Awesome's place. Bring Bryce. We'll have a Call of Duty marathon."

"Yeah, sure," Chuck replied, not sounding too overjoyed. "We'll be there… um, forty-five minutes."

"See you then."

As they headed back downstairs, Bryce asked, "Hey, you mind driving, just in case you have another fit of rage? I mean, not trying to be an ass, I just don't want you punching the dashboard again."

Chuck nodded. "No problem."

Not that Chuck was particularly pleased to be driving. The Herder. The stupid Herder. It looked like something from a damn box of Cheerios.

Just after they passed La Cienega, headed east on the Santa Monica Freeway, Bryce said something inadvisable. "You know, Chuck, I know that all these disappearances have got your head all screwed up, but you've got to snap out of it, man. You have to consider the very real possibility that it's all in your head, and move on."

Chuck thought about that for a moment, but instead of being placated by Bryce's words, they instead made him grow angry. "All in my head, huh, Bryce?" he growled. "Let me assure you, Sarah Walker was NOT in my head."

"Chuck, I'm sure she was completely real to you –"

"Wait, stop," Chuck interrupted him. "Let's think about this for a moment. Let's assume it IS all in my head. What exactly is in my head that isn't supposed to be, Bryce?"

Bryce stared at him blankly. "Uh…"

"The INTERSECT, dipshit!" Chuck spat. "And how'd it get there, Bryce?"

"Chuck, listen…"

"That would be YOU, fucker!" Chuck was getting a full head of steam. "You know what, if you'd just left well enough alone, maybe none of this shit would've happened!"

Now Bryce was pissed too. "Oh, yeah, that's a GREAT idea, Chuck!" he shot back. "You know what would've happened if I hadn't taken down the original Intersect? Huh? No, you DON'T. Fulcrum would've gotten their hands on it, and do you remember whose file you saw in the Intersect back in November of 2007?"

"Several people's," Chuck replied. "So?"

"You saw your OWN file, remember?" Bryce asked angrily. "Now, just imagine, Fulcrum had gotten into that, seen your file, and the fact that you had a significant degree of subliminal image retention capabilities. What do you think they would've done with you, Chuck?"

"I… I don't know," Chuck said.

"They either would have KILLED you or turned you into one of THEM!"

Chuck sighed heavily. "Fine," he replied, his voice low and guarded. "You don't want to take responsibility for that, why don't we go back to 2003, when you decided that you were a better judge of how my future should go than I was, and conspired with Professor Fleming to get me kicked out of Stanford so that I wouldn't be recruited by the CIA. Please, do explain that one away."

Bryce stared at him in shock. "How… how did you know about that?"

"I saw Fleming's video, Bryce!" Chuck practically roared. He pulled the Herder off the side of the freeway. He was really getting into it now.

"YOU thought you knew better than me! Imagine if the CIA had actually been able to recruit me, Bryce! Sure, maybe I STILL would've ended up with the Intersect in my head, but guess what? It would've been done PROPERLY, with doctors and scientists monitoring me, not through some dumbass e-mail that was coded with a Zork password!"

Bryce didn't say a word. He didn't dare.

"Cat got your tongue, Larkin?" Chuck snarled. "You know, honest to God, I would trade you for ANYBODY who has disappeared in a HEARTBEAT."

And instantly, Chuck's head was hit with the worst pain he had felt yet. It was different from the previous headaches in that it didn't feel like a spike of pain that had been lanced through his head. Rather, it felt like the pain originated in the center of his head and radiated outwards.

This one lasted for a while, too. The Herder seemed to be filled with a bright light, and Chuck heard buzzes and beeps sounding in his ears – sounds that he was quite certain didn't come from the freeway.

As suddenly as it had begun, the headache passed. Chuck kept his eyes tightly shut, afraid to look at the shotgun seat, afraid that the last words one of his best friends would have heard from him would have been words of anger, words of dismissal –

"Chuck?"

WHAT. THE. HELL.

His eyes flew open, and to his utter astonishment, there was a passenger in the shotgun seat. But it wasn't Bryce.

"Chuck, how did I get here, and where exactly have I been?"

Chuck stared at Veronica Mars with no small degree of incredulity. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. His jaw simply hung open as he stared at her in disbelief.

Veronica narrowed her eyes. "Chuck, you're staring at me as if you've seen a ghost."

"You're not too far off," he finally whispered, his voice shaking. "You disappeared – as in, evaporated from the planet and from everybody's memory – on November 23rd. Today is December 1st."

Her eyes widened. "My God…"

Chuck grabbed her shoulders. "What's the last thing you remember?"

She looked downward, thinking. "I remember having lunch with you, and you telling me that a person named Logan Echolls had disappeared… then I remember going back to my office…"

She looked back up at Chuck, shaking her head. "I don't remember anything after that."

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, you disappeared something like half an hour later – along with the entire town of Neptune."

"What? What do you mean, Neptune disappeared?!"

"Gone," Chuck replied. "Poof. No more Neptune. Balboa County – no longer exists."

Veronica put her hands to her face. "Oh my God. Has anybody else disappeared?"

Chuck nodded somberly. "Two ex-girlfriends of mine who you've never met, Casey, Carina…"

He stopped. He couldn't bring himself to say the last name, but the look on his face spoke volumes.

"Oh, no," Veronica whispered. "No, not Sarah…"

Chuck nodded, his eyes welling with tears. "Oh, Chuck," Veronica said, her voice breaking. She unbuckled her seatbelt, and reached out for Chuck, wrapping him in her arms as he broke down and began to sob.

Chuck clung to her, crying onto her shoulder, his outpouring of grief mixed with an unspeakable joy at seeing this person he'd thought lost –

And that's when a truck blew past, its horn blaring. Chuck gritted his teeth momentarily – and then realized he was holding onto nothing. His eyes flew open –

She was gone again.

Chuck froze. He felt another sob rising in his chest, but he willed it away.

"Fucking figures," he whispered.

Re-starting the Herder, he drove the rest of the way to the Woodcombs' apartment in silence. When he reached the apartment complex, he trudged across the courtyard, stealing a look at Casey's apartment as he passed. It was dark, vacant – and looked to have been that way for years.

When he reached the door, he knocked – and it was almost immediately pulled open by Morgan. "Dude, where've you be –"

Morgan's voice cut off as he saw Chuck's face. "Shit, dude, what happened?"

Ellie heard that and came running to the door. "Was there another disappearance, Chuck?"

Chuck started to speak, but he didn't know where to begin. Bryce would've been the one to pass along word that Sarah had disappeared, but Bryce was gone. Of course, Chuck had told Morgan, but who knew if Morgan had said anything.

So he nodded and started with that morning. "I was in Santa Barbara this morning," Chuck said quietly. "I was up there with my wife, Sarah. She was the first disappearance."

Ellie held up a hand. "Wait, you were where?"

Chuck looked at her strangely. "Santa Barbara?"

Ellie shrugged. "Never heard of it."

Chuck sighed. "Another city gone," he whispered. "Anyway, she disappeared, then my friend Bryce disappeared, and then, Veronica – you remember me talking about her, right?"

"Of course," Ellie said. "She's the one you drew in color."

Chuck nodded. "She RE-appeared in my car, and then a moment later, disappeared again. So, yeah. It's been kind of a rough day for me."

"Dude, sounds like you could use a cold one," Devin said, sounding completely serious, as he appeared in the doorway. He handed Chuck an open Corona, which he accepted gratefully. Devin ushered Chuck into the living room.

"Have a seat, Chuckster," he invited him. "I think we need to talk."

Chuck sat down, and looked at Devin strangely. "What about?"

Devin raised an eyebrow. "I think you've got some sort of definitely not awesome mental issue, _mon frère._"

Chuck shook his head. "But what?" he asked. "I mean, you scanned my brain. It's fine, remember?"

Devin shrugged. "Might not be a physical problem, Chuck. Your brain might just not be firing quite right."

Chuck looked at Devin like he was crazy. "What exactly would've caused something like this?"

Devin cocked an eyebrow. "Post-traumatic stress disorder," he replied. "It's possible you've been suffering from it for years. When'd your mom disappear?"

Chuck furrowed his brow. "October of 1996," he replied. "So?"

"Well, that could be significant," Devin said. "You know, everybody who you said has disappeared so far, you met since then, right?"

"Right," Chuck replied, nodding. "And?"

"And if your mom's departure caused post-traumatic stress disorder, it's entirely possible that your brain might have manufactured all those people," Devin told him. "Now, something has set your brain off, and just like your mother abandoned you, now your brain is causing all these manufactured constructs that you've come to know and love to abandon you.

"The biggest proof of this is that somebody who already disappeared then proceeded to reappear in your car, Chuck. Why would that have happened?"

"I don't know!" Chuck exclaimed. "But there's no way they were constructs! There is no WAY that Sarah Walker was a construct! I loved her! She made me feel complete!" His voice started to shake. "There is no WAY that ANY of them were constructs!"

Devin nodded. "I know, bro," he said quietly. "They all would've seemed one hundred percent, completely real to you. And I gotta tell you, it takes one hell of a brain to manufacture as many seemingly sentient constructs as you seem to hav-"

Devin's words were suddenly cut off by the sound of a train roaring through Chuck's head. His head slammed back against the back of the chair, agony piercing him as the freight train went barreling in one ear and out the other. He gritted his teeth and forced his mind to try to remain in the real world… but it was slipping, slipping…

And the noise of the train receded. Chuck looked across at the empty recliner where Devin had been seconds before.

Chuck shook his head, and spoke, his words aimed at dead air. "Does that mean you were a construct, too?"


	10. To the Last Man

**Wednesday, December 8****th****, 2010**

Chuck Bartowski had been locked in his apartment for the last week, not setting foot outside once.

Groceries had been ordered from Vons' website and delivered by truck. His primary food group had become pizza – Papa John's had disappeared, he was annoyed to discover, but both Pizza Hut and Domino's were still quite happy to take his money.

With Sarah, Jill, Bryce, and Devin all disappearing in the same day – not to mention the brief and bizarre reappearance of Veronica – Chuck had had the biggest freak-out of all time. And Ellie and Morgan were concerned.

"He's basically turned into Howard Hughes," Morgan mused as they walked down the corridor toward Chuck's apartment.

"If he's keeping bottles full of urine in there, I'm gonna smack him," Ellie replied.

When they reached the apartment, Ellie knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again. After knocking a third time, she yelled, "I know you're in there, Chuck!"

After they had been standing at the door for a couple of minutes, Morgan lifted his fist and started rhythmically pounding the door. Finally, it was wrenched open. "JESUS CHRIST!" Chuck roared. "I WAS ON THE FUCKING TOILET!"

Morgan and Ellie's eyes widened, and they looked at each other. "Sorry, dude," Morgan said quietly, turning his gaze back to Chuck. "You know, you've been cooped up in here for the last week… we've been a little worried."

Chuck sighed, and his expression softened. "You're right," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. Come in."

Chuck's sister and best friend stepped into the apartment – and to both their surprise, it wasn't the Howard Hughes-like disaster they had been expecting. Granted, Chuck looked a little like the Wild Man of Borneo, but at least it was evident that he'd showered in the last twenty-four hours, and his seven days' beard growth was groomed.

The empty pizza boxes were stacked neatly by the door. No napkins littered the living room, and the sink was surprisingly empty. What Ellie was interested in, though, was the state of the walls of his office.

Opening the door, she stepped into the darkness of the Nerd Cave. Reaching to her left, she flipped on the switch –

And her breath escaped her. The walls looked almost like an art gallery. There were the ones she had seen before – John and Lisa, Reese, Logan Echolls, Veronica Mars. But more had been added, ones Ellie hadn't seen before – Lou Pirelli, Carina Hansen, John Casey.

Then there were the four that Chuck said had disappeared a week beforehand. Two pencil sketches – Jill Marie Tanner and Devin Alan Woodcomb. A slightly blurry charcoal sketch – Bryce David Larkin.

But it was the fourth one that really took Ellie's breath away. A canvas nearly six feet tall, the picture was clearly life-size. It had been done with pastels, a blonde woman with sparkling blue eyes, wearing a maroon leather jacket, blue jeans, and black high-heeled boots. _**Sarah Elisabeth Walker**_, said the inscription at the top.

"Wow," she breathed, aware of Chuck entering the room. "You really loved her, didn't you?"

"With all my heart," Chuck replied quietly. "I don't know how I can live without her."

Ellie sighed. "That's why Morgan and I are here, Chuck. I know that the CT we did on you two and a half weeks ago was negative, but something has to be wrong. You need help."

Chuck just stared at her. "So what's the plan, then?" he finally asked.

"We're gonna do another head CT on you," Ellie replied, "in addition to a functional MRI and a battery of other tests."

Chuck nodded. "Okay, so I understand why you're going with me. You're a doctor. But Morgan?"

Ellie looked at him sadly. "Chuck, he's your best friend, and it would prob-"

Chuck cut her off. "No, Ellie," he replied. He pointed at the life-size pastel of Sarah Walker. "She was my best friend. Is my best friend."

"Chuck," Ellie said quietly, "she never existed."

Chuck whirled toward her, but he didn't look angry. He looked determined. "That's where you're wrong, Ellie," he replied. "She was real. Every single person on this wall was real. That one, right there" – he pointed at the picture of Devin – "he was your husband! Don't you ever feel like there's an empty space in your life, like there's something missing?"

Ellie fell quiet as she thought. "I guess so," she said uncertainly. "I just… I never really gave it much thought."

Chuck nodded. "I understand," he replied. "There's no reason for you to. So…"

He walked out of the Nerd Cave and into his bedroom. "I tell you what. Let me get cleaned up. Let me shave, shower, all that. Take me to Cedars, run the tests. If there's nothing wrong with ME, then I think it's time that you start to actually perhaps believe what I've been saying."

Ellie nodded slowly. "Okay," she finally said. "That sounds fair. But make it quick, okay?"

Chuck pointed at his face and laughed. "This is gonna take a little while, sis."

* * *

Forty minutes later, the trio was headed east in Ellie's Pontiac. As they drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, Chuck was struck by how deserted the streets seemed to be.

"Why are there so few people on the Westside today?" he asked. "It's usually a zoo on Wednesdays!"

Morgan looked at him strangely. "Uh, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Chuck, but only about a million people live here."

"In the city?!"

"In the metro area, dude."

Chuck's eyes widened. "You're kidding."

In the mirror, he could see Morgan shaking his head. "That's insane!" Chuck insisted. "There's supposed to be EIGHTEEN MILLION PEOPLE in the greater Los Angeles area! I mean, for God's sake, it stretches out to Ventura, and Palm Springs, and down halfway through Orange County!"

Morgan laughed. "Dude, who the hell would want to live in Orange County? It's a bunch of citrus orchards and rednecks."

Chuck practically choked when he heard that. "What about Disneyland?!"

"Disneywhat?"

Chuck was quiet the rest of the way to Cedars. As they approached the hospital, Chuck just shook his head in disbelief at how empty the area appeared to be. Then he noticed something very wrong.

"Where the fuck is the Beverly Center?!"

Ellie looked over at him, an alarmed look on her face. "The what?"

"The Beverly Center!" Chuck shot back. "It's an eight floor shopping center that's supposed to be across San Vicente Boulevard from Cedars-Sinai!"

"Chuck," Ellie replied, "there's an amusement park and an oil well over there. That's it."

Chuck clasped his hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut. If it wasn't there, the Intersect wasn't going to flash on it, but surely he had SOME memory…

_The Beverly Center was opened in March of 1982…_

Chuck exhaled slowly. "Of course," he whispered. "It was built after all three of us were born. There's no reason for it to be there."

Ellie's look grew even more concerned, but she didn't say anything – she just kept driving.

* * *

"Alright, Chuck, I want you to think of… Sarah Walker," Ellie said over the intercom.

Chuck was flat on his back, his head under the functional MRI scanner. Chuck closed his eyes and envisioned Sarah – the very first time she had walked into the Buy More, wearing that maroon jacket and blue jeans. God, she had looked incredible.

"Chuck?"

"Yeah, Ellie?"

"I need you to think about Sarah."

Chuck lifted his head up. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "I am!"

"I'm not showing any brain activity at all, Chuck."

"What are you talking about?!"

"There's nothing, Chuck. Do me a favor. Think about me or Morgan."

Chuck closed his eyes, and Sarah appeared again. Walking into the Buy More.

"_Stop the presses!" Morgan said. "Who is THAT?! Chuck… Chuck! Vicki Vale!"_

"Okay, I got that," Ellie said. "Your brain just lit up like a Christmas tree."

Chuck furrowed his brow. "So what the hell does that mean?" he asked. "I think about Sarah, there's nothing… I think about Morgan, my brain goes cuckoo?"

He could hear Ellie sigh. "I really don't know, Chuck," she replied. "This is… kind of weird."

"KIND of weird?" Chuck laughed. "It's totally freakin' bizarre, that's what it is!"

"Okay, Chuck, I need you to calm back down," Ellie told him. "Think about somebody else who you said has disappeared."

Chuck tried to calm down – but for some reason, he couldn't stop laughing. The laughs kept coming, getting more and more hysterical. "CHUCK!" Ellie shouted. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know!" he called between laughs. "I-"

And that's when his head was hit with the falling anvil. The pain caused him to fall backwards onto the sliding pad. His body stiffened, almost as if he was having a seizure.

His arms were stiff, but he managed to bring them up to the sides of his head, almost as if he was holding it together. "CHUCK!" he heard Ellie yell. "Chuck! Chu-"

Her voice cut off at the same time the pain ceased. Chuck froze. He didn't breathe. He knew exactly what that meant.

Slowly, he slid himself out of the MRI, and stood, looking into the control booth. The chairs that had been occupied by Ellie and Morgan just seconds before were empty.

Chuck closed his eyes. His breathing got ragged, and he had to will himself not to cry. He had to will himself not to think about the fact that he was now alone.

He stepped into the control booth and changed out of the hospital gown into the clothes he had left in there. Picking up his phone, he turned it on, and pulled up the phonebook.

Empty. No phone numbers, no e-mail addresses – no names.

Attaching the phone to his belt, he stepped out into the hallway. "Hello?"

No answer.

He walked down the hall to the nurses' station. Nobody there. Nobody in any of the rooms. Nobody in the restroom.

Chuck didn't like this at all. It was starting to remind him a bit too much of _I Am Legend_. He made his way down to the lobby and out of the hospital.

There was nobody outside. Abandoned cars littered San Vicente Boulevard – empty. Curiously enough, none of them were running.

He walked up to Beverly Boulevard, almost in a daze, and turned left – heading back to Santa Monica. Maybe somewhere along the way, there would be a vehicle he could borrow.

Chuck got to the intersection of Beverly and Santa Monica before he finally found something. Every car he'd come to had been unlocked, no keys in the ignition, nothing. But there, in the parking lot of the convention center, was an L.A. Metro bus, its engine on and idling.

"The driver must not have been onboard," Chuck mused – to himself, really, since there was nobody around to hear him. He jogged over to the bus, and climbed onboard.

With no noise except for the sound of the bus's engine, Chuck could hear the clacking of the signboard as it kept changing from "14 – Beverly Blvd" to "Civic Center" and back again. It was a little eerie.

"Okay, how does this work?" Chuck asked himself. He looked for a gearshift – there it was. Slowly, he maneuvered it into drive, and the bus began to crawl forward.

Chuck gently pressed on the gas pedal, and the bus moved forward a little more quickly. Not used to the size of the vehicle, Chuck took the turn out onto Santa Monica Boulevard VERY wide and sideswiped four cars.

"Sorry," he muttered – although, there was no reason to be sorry, was there?

He drove slowly down Santa Monica, usually pulling around cars, but having to occasionally plow through a few when they were blocking the road. When he reached Sepulveda Boulevard, however, he was treated to a rather disconcerting sight.

A Boeing 747, in the livery of United Airlines, had crashed on Sepulveda about a quarter mile north of Santa Monica. Oddly enough, though it was burning, it appeared to be rather intact. "It must have crashed when everybody onboard disappeared," Chuck said out loud.

As he drove past Sepulveda, he could feel the heat from the burning airplane. Reaching out for the door crank, he swung the door shut, blocking out most of the heat.

Nearly twenty minutes later, he finally reached Lincoln Boulevard and his apartment complex. Parking the bus in the middle of the street, he turned it off and headed toward his apartment.

There was one car in the parking lot – his Herder. Brushing past the Toyota Yaris, he headed up the steps to his apartment.

Unlocking the door, he headed directly into the Nerd Cave and opened up his laptop. He pulled up Google Maps, and it pulled up a map of his default location.

Chuck looked at the map – and froze. His eyes widened.

"That's not possible!"


	11. You've Got a New Horizon

There was one car in the parking lot of the apartment complex – Chuck's Herder. Brushing past the Toyota Yaris, he headed up the steps to his apartment.

Unlocking the door, he headed directly into the Nerd Cave and opened up his laptop. He pulled up Google Maps, and it pulled up a map of his default location.

Chuck looked at the map – and froze. His eyes widened.

"That's not possible!" Something was just not adding up.

Chuck looked at the map again, a look of disbelief appearing on his face. According to Google Maps, the whole of the world was an area smaller than twenty square miles. If he went north, it ended at Sunset Boulevard. To the east, the 405 freeway; south, Venice Boulevard, and to the west, the Pacific Ocean seemed to go as far as the edge of the continental shelf – and then just stop.

"There's no way," Chuck breathed. "What the hell happened?"

He scrolled out – and the only thing that Google Maps displayed around the edges of the bounded areas was the graphic that said "No information for this zoom level."

And then, as he watched, it got a little bit smaller. Sunset Boulevard disappeared.

"NO WAY!" Chuck shouted. With trembling hands, he switched over to the directions option and asked for directions from his apartment to Sunset and Bundy Drive.

_Google Maps is unable to locate your destination,_ it said. Sunset Boulevard was just plain gone.

And then it hit Chuck – what was bothering him about this.

"If this is everything that exists, then Google Maps shouldn't work," he said. "Google is located in Mountain View!"

Just like that, Firefox switched over to a 404 Not Found error page.

"This is just wrong," Chuck whispered.

Grabbing his keys, Chuck ran downstairs to the parking lot. He grimaced at the sight of the Herder. He missed his Corvette.

Chuck beeped open the Herder and got in. Starting it up, he pulled out of the complex onto Lincoln Boulevard.

The streets were littered with abandoned cars. Nobody was in Santa Monica.

The lights were cycling through – red, green, yellow – but no cars were moving. Chuck simply ignored the lights, and the occasional red light camera flash that accompanied them.

If he was right, there was no point in observing them.

When he reached Olympic Boulevard, he turned left to head east. Two blocks later, he took the ramp to lead him onto the Santa Monica Freeway.

The overhead signs told him what streets were coming. _Twentieth Street. Pico Boulevard. I-405 Freeway._

But then there was the yellow sign at the bottom of the big green sign. _FREEWAY ENDS 3 MILES_.

"What?!"

That couldn't possibly be right. Interstate 10 ran all the way across the country to Florida – which quite possibly no longer existed.

And as Chuck approached the 405, he took his foot off the gas and slowly coasted to a stop. Putting the Herder in park, he stepped out of the car and looked to the east.

He looked – and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The Intersect flashed, and told him exactly what he was looking at.

"Oh my God," Chuck breathed.

Had the Intersect not told him otherwise, he would have assumed that what he was looking at was a cloud of smoke from that United Airlines 747 that had crashed on Sepulveda Boulevard. But according to the Intersect, he was looking at the edge of the universe.

"This is just freakin' impossible," Chuck shouted. "There's no way!"

But as he watched, the 405 freeway slowly was absorbed into the void. The many signs indicating the exits for the 405 slowly faded from view.

Chuck's mouth fell open. "But… the 10 runs all the way to Jacksonville!"

And where the indicator for the 405 had been, the green freeway sign above him suddenly changed to say, "Jacksonville, Florida – 2,453 miles."

Chuck looked up at the sign above him in astonishment. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

He jumped back in the Herder and turned it on. Pulling a u-turn, he headed back the wrong way on the eastbound side of I-10, going back west toward the ocean.

But there – on the horizon – he could see the void advancing from the ocean as well. He had to hurry.

He broke every conceivable traffic law on the way back to his apartment – not that there was anybody around to enforce them. He could see the void closing in from all four directions, but at the rate it was advancing, he figured he probably had about an hour.

Chuck ran into the apartment. Practically knocking the door over, he pulled up his list of disappeared people on his laptop.

**JOHN BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LISA BARTOWSKI:** date met, 15 November 2010. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**REESE WOODCOMB:** date met, 12 April 2009. Date missing, 21 November 2010.  
**LOGAN ECHOLLS:** date met, 5 September 2008. Date missing, 22 November 2010.  
**VERONICA MARS:** date met, 24 July 2008. Date missing, 23 November 2010.  
**LOUISE PIRELLI:** date met, 12 November 2007. Date missing, 24 November 2010.  
**CARINA HANSEN:** date met, 17 October 2007. Date missing, 25 November 2010.  
**JOHN CASEY:** date met, 26 September 2007. Date missing, 25 November 2010.  
**SARAH WALKER:** date met, 25 September 2007. Date missing, 1 December 2010.  
**JILL TANNER:** date met, 4 September 1999. Date missing, 1 December 2010.  
**BRYCE LARKIN: **date met, 4 September 1999. Date missing, 1 December 2010.  
**DEVIN WOODCOMB:** date met, 17 March 1996. Date missing, 1 December 2010.

Morgan and Ellie's names were, of course, missing, because as far as the computer was concerned, they had never existed, and Chuck hadn't had the time to add their names back.

"Okay," he whispered, "let's see if my theory is correct."

Closing his eyes, he envisioned the document in front of him. Concentrating, he changed the document in his mind to add Morgan and Ellie's names to the bottom.

His eyes stayed closed for a moment, and then he reopened them. He looked at the bottom of the list –

**MORGAN GRIMES:** date met, 9 September 1986. Date missing, 8 December 2010.  
**ELLIE WOODCOMB:** date met, 22 September 1981. Date missing, 8 December 2010.

Chuck jumped out of his chair and thrust his fists in the air, knocking his chair over backward. "IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD!" he roared.

He started doing a happy little jig around the Nerd Cave. "None of it's real! All I have to do is figure out how to get out!"

Then he froze. "But… I have to make sure Morgan and Ellie stay real in my mind!"

Throwing open the closet door, he began digging, searching for two more 20x30 inch sheets of heavy stock paper, and his pencils. Retrieving them, he hung the pieces of paper on the easel and started drawing at a furious pace.

Morgan's visage flew out of the pencils at a ridiculous rate of speed. Working as if he were superhuman, Chuck finished off the last details of Morgan's face, then took a green pencil to the shoulder areas – making it look as though he were in a Buy More polo.

Tacking Morgan up on the wall, he went to work on his sister. She was even easier than Morgan – he'd seen Ellie every single day of his life, and it took him practically no time at all to draw her.

He tacked the drawing of Ellie up on the wall. Grabbing his car keys, he headed outside, and nearly flew down the stairs. He started to open up the door of the Herder – and froze.

The void had closed in to about a one square block area. There was practically nothing left. "Okay," Chuck whispered. "Let's get me out of here."

He decided to test his mental powers before really putting them to work. Looking at the street, where he had left the bus parked in the turn lane, he closed his eyes, and envisioned the street without the bus. He reopened them –

No bus. "YEAH!" he roared. Then he closed his eyes again, and envisioned the entire City of Santa Monica. He squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as he could, and concentrated.

He reopened his eyes – and no change. "Aw, fuck," Chuck spat. "Not good."

Chuck slid into the Herder's driver's seat. He wasn't sure why – he just thought it would be a good place to sit and think for a second. He looked over at the glove box –

Images flashed before him. An image of an emergency command console. An image of an auto-destruct device. A picture of Laszlo, the crazy kid who had designed the Herder. And a slow-motion replay of the exact sequence Laszlo had entered into the CD player to activate all of it.

Chuck snapped out of the flash. "Thank you, Intersect," he breathed. Surely, if the Herder's self-destruct device would've been powerful enough to destroy the entire City of Santa Monica, then it would be powerful enough to detonate this – whatever it was.

Chuck quickly entered the button sequence into the CD player, and the emergency command console folded out of the glove box. He frantically examined the command console – but he didn't see anything to activate the auto-destruct sequence, nor did the Intersect give him any instructions.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he breathed frantically. "Where the hell is – oh."

He looked down to see that the top of the gearshift had come open, and there was a big red button inside that said, "Auto Destruct Activator." Chuck nearly laughed out loud. It was pretty clear to see that the system had been built by a crazy person – only somebody with delusions of being an evil overlord would have done that.

Chuck punched the button. Slowly, the hood opened. He jumped out of the car, and ran around to the front. The auto-destruct mechanism was elevating out of the engine compartment. Chuck watched as it slowly locked into place.

"_Please state self-destruct parameters,_" the Herder said to him in a mechanical voice.

"Uh, uhm…" Chuck stammered. "Uh, immediate execution!"

"_Immediate execution confirmed_," the Herder replied. "_Awaiting thumbprint input._"

Chuck ran back to the driver's door of the Herder. Reaching in, he grasped the keys from the ignition, and then ran back to the front. Aiming the remote control at the Herder, he prepared to press the back with his thumb –

And bolts of electricity shot out of the Herder's headlights, knocking Chuck on his ass. "What the hell?" he gasped. "I don't think so!"

He got back to his feet. His chest hurt all of a sudden. "Ow," he complained, wincing at the pain as he bent to pick up the keys. He aimed the remote again –

And the bolts of electricity shot out of the Herder's headlights again. They were stronger this time, and lasted longer. Chuck flew backwards quite a distance. It really hurt.

He moved to stand up – but his right foot had gone numb. He looked backward – and was horrified to see that his foot had disappeared into the edge of the void. "Oh, shit!" he shouted.

Chuck tried to drag himself forward toward the keys. They were right there, just out of his reach. He extended his arm forward as far as he could. His fingertips brushed the Herder's ignition key, but he couldn't quite reach them –

"DON'T YOU DARE LET GO, BARTOWSKI!" It was Casey's voice, booming from all around, like the voice of God. Chuck looked up in alarm – and then, with a renewed effort, thrust his arm forward and grasped the keys.

But the effort made him light-headed, for reasons he didn't quite understand. The light-headedness, combined with the numbness that was slowly crawling up his right leg, were making him a little drowsy. He sighed, the keys beginning to fall from his grasp as his head rested on the pavement.

"Chuck, I need you."

His head popped up and his eyes flew open as Sarah's voice sounded in his ears. It was almost as if she was speaking from directly in front of him. He maneuvered the keys in his hand, and pressed his thumb against the back of the remote –

A bolt of blinding light shot upward from the Herder's engine compartment. The void suddenly receded, and Chuck's leg was released. He stood, as the light grew brighter.

Soon, it enveloped everything, and Chuck was only able to see the Herder. He began to walk toward it –

And the light burst outward. The shock wave threw Chuck backward. He landed on his back, but felt unhurt. The light grew brighter, and brighter. Chuck lifted his hand in front of his eyes to block out the light, and he sat up –

_To be continued…_


	12. All That You Can't Leave Behind

Chuck maneuvered the keys in his hand, and pressed his thumb against the back of the remote – and a bolt of blinding light shot upward from the Herder's engine compartment. The void suddenly receded, and Chuck's leg was released. He stood, as the light grew brighter.

Soon, it enveloped everything, and Chuck was only able to see the Herder. He began to walk toward it –

And the light burst outward. The shock wave threw Chuck backward. He landed on his back, but felt unhurt. The light grew brighter, and brighter. Chuck lifted his hand in front of his eyes to block out the light, and he sat up –

He felt a pair of hands grab each of his shoulders and gently push him back downwards. The brightness began to recede, and as it did, he could make out human shapes.

Chuck began to hear a steady, rhythmical _beep… beep… beep_…

And then…

"Chuck?" Sarah's face appeared above his.

He smiled. "Hey, Sarah," he tried to say, but only a rasp came out of his suddenly dry throat. She still understood. A smile threatened to split her face in two, and she bent down, placed a hand on either side of his face, and gently kissed him.

When she pulled back, he said, "Can I please sit up?"

Without warning, he felt whatever he was lying on begin to move. After a moment, he realized what it was – a motorized hospital bed, moving his upper body into an upright position.

He looked around curiously. He was definitely in a hospital room. Several IVs and electrodes were attached to his left arm, and there was a heart monitor on his left hand side. As the bed elevated, he could see that in addition to Sarah, Casey and Ellie were in the room, as were two women in scrubs.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Bartowski," Casey cracked.

Chuck opened his mouth and tried to ask, _What happened_, but found himself still unable to make words come out. Annoyed, he pointed at a bottle of water next to the bed.

One of the women in scrubs spoke. "Mr. Bartowski, we'd prefer it if you didn't drink anything for a moment –"

Chuck cut her off, rasping, "Give me the goddamn water or I'll have her –" he pointed at Sarah "- kill you."

Sarah cocked an eyebrow, while Casey tried and failed to conceal a laugh. The woman backed away from Chuck slowly. Sarah handed Chuck the water bottle, which he brought to his mouth and sucked on greedily.

After finally draining it, he set it down. "That is a HELL of a lot better," he said. "Now, somebody want to explain to me what happened?"

It was Ellie who spoke first. "Do you know what day it is, Chuck?"

He shook his head. "Last I remember, it was December 8th."

Ellie smiled. "Not even close," she replied. "It's November 19th."

_Two days before everything began_, Chuck thought.

"Five days ago, you were standing in a delivery room two floors above us," Ellie explained. "You were watching your kids being born." She stopped for a moment, appearing to try not to laugh. "Apparently, you didn't do so well with the sight of Lisa crowning, because you passed out."

Her face went back to looking serious. "When you passed out, though, nobody was able to catch you. You fell and hit your head on the floor so hard that you fractured your skull. You've been in a coma since Monday."

Chuck's eyes widened. "Was there… was there any brain damage?" he asked.

"Nothing permanent," Ellie replied. "However, we were afraid that when you woke up, there would be some retrograde amnesia… although it doesn't look like that's the case."

"You didn't see my hallucinations," Chuck grumbled.

Ellie raised an eyebrow. "You were hallucinating?"

Chuck nodded. "The hallucinations actually start tomorrow," he replied.

He spent the next fifteen minutes telling the whole story. When he got to the last part, where he was suddenly able to control them with his mind, and then he started getting zapped by the Herder, Ellie had a little explaining to do.

"You had a seizure about fifteen minutes before you woke up," she said. "Then your heart went into V-fib, and we had to shock you to restart it. That's what that was all about."

"I see," Chuck replied. "So, when I heard Casey yell, he was actually yelling?"

"That I was," Casey replied. "And when you heard Walker… well, I'm not gonna repeat it, lest I have to borrow your emesis tray."

"Gosh, thanks, John," Sarah said sarcastically. "So sentimental."

Then something occurred to Chuck. "The kids," he said. "I want to see the kids."

"Heh," Casey cracked. "Good luck trying to pry them out of Mars and Echolls' hands."

"Veronica and Logan!" Chuck exclaimed. "I want to see them too!"

"I'm sorry, there's no way," the woman in scrubs who had tried to deny Chuck water earlier said. "You've been in a coma for the last five days, and your immune system is running at a low as a result. We have no idea what the children could be carrying."

Chuck cocked his head to the side and looked at her. "I'm sorry, what was your name?"

"Doctor Rebecca Lowe," she replied. "I'm the physician of record for your case."

Chuck smiled. "Not anymore, you're not." His expression hardened. "I can't believe you'd try to keep me from seeing my own kids. I want a new doctor. You're fired."

Her eyes widened. "WHAT?!" She turned to Sarah. "Mrs. Bartowski, you're not going to allow this?"

Sarah shrugged. "Who am I to deny my husband's wishes for his medical care?"

Dr. Lowe turned back to Chuck. "Mr. Bartowski, this is a mistake."

Chuck shook his head. "I don't care. Good-bye."

Casey rose from his chair, and walked around the bed. "Doctor Lowe, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

"And who the hell do you think YOU are?!"

Casey rolled his eyes. "I hate doing this." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his badge. "Federal agent. Get out."

Half an hour later, Veronica and Logan came in the door. Both of them were ecstatic to see Chuck alive and awake, and as happy as Chuck was to see both of them, he was absolutely over-the-moon to see his kids for the first time.

The funny thing was, they looked exactly like they had in his hallucinations. John had dark brown eyes, just like Chuck, and barely any hair – just a few wisps of blonde on top of his head. Lisa, on the other hand, had bright blue eyes, just like Sarah, and a whole mop of brown hair already on top of her head.

Devin came by when he got off of work, and having been alerted by Ellie that Chuck was awake, brought Morgan with him. Cedars-Sinai was not too happy about all those people being in one patient's room, but since said patient was a multi-millionaire video game developer, they dealt with it quietly.

Nonetheless, when visiting hours were over, there was no leeway. Devin, having looked at Chuck's charts and having consulted with his new physician-of-record, had agreed with the doctor that Chuck needed to stay at least overnight for observation. And so, at just after 9:00 PM, the whole group headed out the door, except for Sarah, who had spousal privileges, and Logan, who lingered after the group had left.

"Can you give us a minute to talk, Sarah?" he asked.

She nodded, and walked out the door, closing it behind her. Logan sat down by Chuck's bedside.

"So, you gave us all a bit of a scare there, Chuck," he said. "Especially Sarah. She was pretty torn up this last week."

Chuck nodded. "I'm not surprised," he said. "I can't even imagine what my reaction would've been if Sarah had been in a coma for a week."

Logan arched an eyebrow. "Chuck, you thought she was DEAD for a year and a half. I'm pretty sure you could've handled her being in a coma."

Chuck's face took on a thoughtful expression. "That's a good point, I suppose, but I mean, after losing her like that, I'm really not sure how well I'd do."

Logan nodded. "Fair enough." Then he paused. "So, you being out of it like this has kind of given me a new perspective on things. Like, for example, life is short, and I shouldn't put off any longer what I can do today."

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Such as?"

Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box. "This," he said, tossing it up in the air and catching it. "I've been carrying this around for nearly four years."

Chuck's mouth fell open in disbelief. "Is that… is that what I think it is?!"

Logan smiled. "It is indeed, my friend. It is indeed."

Chuck shook his head and laughed. "You know, she once informed me that she was going to die old and alone, never married."

Logan's smile got even bigger. "I believe you'll find that she's changed her mind a bit on that one."

The door opened, and Sarah stuck her head in. "If you two are done gossiping like high school girls… can I have my husband back?"

Logan laughed. "Of course you can. Just make sure he's looking out the window in about five minutes."

Sarah looked at Chuck in confusion as Logan walked out the door. "What was that all about?"

Chuck smiled. "You'll see in a moment. Help me up?"

Sarah crossed to the bed and helped Chuck to his feet. He was a little unsteady, and had to support himself with Sarah on one side and his IV pole on the other. She helped him over to the window.

"Okay, what are we supposed to be looking at?" Sarah asked.

Chuck pointed downward, to where Veronica stood, leaning against the side of her Aston Martin. Sarah's interest was piqued, and got even more so when Logan came into view.

They watched in silence as Logan walked up to Veronica. He grabbed her hands, and then he kissed her. When he backed away from her and dropped to one knee, Sarah gasped. Chuck looked over at her, to see a big smile on her face.

Veronica's hands flew out of Logan's to her mouth. A moment later, she started nodding vigorously. Logan's right hand dipped into his pocket, came back out with something that they couldn't see from the window, and then his hand went down the length of her left ring finger.

"Okay, I can't take this anymore," Sarah said. She hit the speakerphone button on the room phone and called Veronica's cell phone. A second later, she saw Veronica pull her cell phone out of her purse.

"Hello?"

"CONGRATULATIONS!" they both yelled at the same time.

They could see Veronica's head jerk up in alarm. "How… what?!"

"Look up at the fifth floor," Sarah told her. Veronica's head tilted upward. She waved at them, then turned the back of her left hand toward the window. Sarah waved back, and Chuck gave her a thumbs up.

Veronica shook her head. "You guys are crazy," she said with a laugh.

Chuck smiled. "You have no idea!"

* * *

Chuck was released from Cedars-Sinai on Saturday afternoon, with a stern admonition from his doctor that he was not to drive, surf, or pretty much do anything fun for the next week. "Can I have sex?" Chuck grumbled.

His doctor smiled. "I think that's more up to your wife than me."

On Sunday, Chuck and Sarah took the twins to church for the first time. A few people at First Lutheran were aware of what had happened to Chuck the week before, but most people, having seen him on Sunday the 14th, and now seeing him today, had no idea that he had been in a coma for most of five days.

That was fine with Chuck. He didn't want a lot of attention – he felt that the attention should be paid to the twins. And it certainly was.

Between the old ladies and the college girls, Chuck hadn't been quite sure he was ever going to see either of his children again. But eventually, John Marcus and Lisa Veronica Bartowski had both ended up back in his possession.

Sarah started grumbling again about the Suburban on the way home, so Chuck decided to do something about that. On Monday morning, after Sarah had left with the twins to go to Cedars for a one-week checkup, he called Logan Echolls.

"You want to help me out with a little wife-surprising?" he asked Logan.

"Sounds fun," Logan replied. "When do you want me to meet you?"

An hour later, Logan picked him up in his Range Rover, and they walked the half mile down Santa Monica Boulevard to Volvo of Santa Monica. "Sarah's been asking me for an XC90 for the last three months," Chuck explained. "She's sick of driving around in Casey's Suburban."

And so, they ended up going for a test drive in a maroon XC90. As they were returning to the dealership, though, Chuck started hearing a buzzing noise. His head snapped up, and his face went pale. "Oh Jesus," he whispered.

Then he realized it was just his cell phone buzzing on his belt. He breathed a sigh of relief, and pulled the phone – it WAS a Blackberry, thank God – off his belt. Sarah's face was on the screen.

He smiled and hit the call button. "I love you," he said by way of greeting.

"Likewise," she replied, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Any thoughts on what we're taking to your sister's place for Thanksgiving?"

Chuck grimaced. "Anything but pumpkin pie."

"Okaaay," Sarah said slowly, sounding confused. "Sweet potatoes it is, then."

He could hear talking in the background, and then Sarah said, "Ellie says that you're a chickenshit for not wanting to do pumpkin pie, and Veronica says that you're a chickenshit for the reason you passed out in the delivery room."

Chuck laughed. "You know, I can always take this XC90 back to the Volvo dealership."

Sarah didn't say anything for a moment, and then he heard her say, "My husband is NOT a chickenshit!"

Chuck practically roared with laughter. "Okay, I gotta go," Sarah said. "I love you."

"I love you too, babe."

He hung up his phone. Logan looked over at him. "That sounded fun."

Chuck laughed and re-clipped the phone to his belt. "You have NO idea."

* * *

_The end. Probably the end of the Chuck/VM crossover stories, too. Thanks for reading!  
_


End file.
